


precipice in the mountains

by spacegirlkj



Series: AI au [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (or as accidental as it can be), Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe - Artificial Intelligence, Angst, Math and Science Metaphors, Multi, Non-Graphic Smut, Yandere Themes, based on ex machina (no knowledge of the movie needed i got u)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-08-27 00:11:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8379853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegirlkj/pseuds/spacegirlkj
Summary: “Artificial intelligence,” Iwaizumi whispers.“My greatest creation, Hinata Shouyou,"  Oikawa replies, voice equally as enchanted as his own, "Life itself.”





	1. the turing test

**Author's Note:**

> so here it is, the project ive been nursing for the last month, my baby, my c h i ld!!! thank you to everyone who cheered this on, and thank you to mooksmookin for betaing!!  
> without further ado, i hope you enjoy~

Iwaizumi wakes to the same white walls everyday. The eerie presence of a room too stark, too minimalistic for someone who grew up with clutter suffocates him, even after five years of living there. Money can buy an aesthetic, but it can’t buy comfort, he supposes. Today, though, Iwaizumi breaks the routine, wakes in the porcelain bathtub in cold sweat. He winces, head pounding harder than his heart, vision swirling. It’s all he can do to lean forward so that his puke doesn’t land on his jeans when he hurls whatever he had the night before.

Against every one of his body’s wishes, Iwaizumi rises to a stand, pulls off his sweat stained shirt and shucks off his jeans. He nearly falls, either from the headache that refuses to dim or the stench of hangover. Iwaizumi reaches blindly to the facet of his shower, gripping onto the dials and praying that water that hits him won’t be ice cold. His prayers are unanswered, and the shock of icy spray is enough to make him curse.

Fussing with the dials, Iwaizumi feels the tension leave his shoulders as the water warms. He sighs, using the soap to scrub down his body, lathering away the reeking smell of alcohol and vomit. Iwaizumi lets a heavy sigh escape his lips as he finishes, shutting off the water and wincing as his headache returns.

Two ibuprofen and a fresh set of clothes later, Iwaizumi allows himself to breath, revelling in the fresh, outdoor air. Shrugging on a rain jacket, he slips into a steady jogging pace, running the streets of his neighbourhood.

Memories blur together from the night before, of phone calls and vodka, sleeping in the bathtub to keep his bed clean. Iwaizumi thanks whatever higher being there may be that he passed out drunk on a Saturday on a day where he worked.

He can faintly remember what lead him to drink himself stupid, but the thought clouds his mind too much to be considered healthy. Iwaizumi pushes the idea down, takes another deep breath and rounds the corner, the steady _thump_ of his head and headache drawing out whatever thoughts threaten to rise. 

Iwaizumi is just beginning to make his way back when his phone rings from the pocket of his coat. Grumbling as he slows his pace, Iwaizumi ducks underneath an awning and fishes out his phone from his jacket. He isn’t sure who would call; Sundays mornings are his only time away from work, and it’s not as if he has a budding social life.

The caller ID reads _UNKNOWN_ , and that alone is enough to make Iwaizumi want to ignore the call. But against what may be his better judgement, he answers, wiping the water from his cheek as he brings his phone to his ear.

“Iwaizumi Hajime,” he answers, trying not to sound as annoyed as he is.

To his surprise, Iwaizumi recognizes the voice on the other end of the call, as bright and peppy as when he last heard it.

_“Iwa-chan,”_ Oikawa replies, sugar sweet tone oozing through the receiver. _“Have you missed me?”_

Iwaizumi desperately wishes OIkawa was in front of him so that he could slap the smirk off his face. “No, but I’m a bit offended that you’re practically having me run your company for you.”

Oikawa laughs — plastic, bitter, slightly too maniacal for Iwaizumi to feel comfortable. _“I just have you do the boring stuff, Iwa-chan. Besides, if I don’t get to escape from the dreary company life, then how will I stay ahead of the rest of these competitors?”_

Iwaizumi contemplates how much trouble he’d get for groaning, and decides against it. “I haven’t seen you in six months, Oikawa, and I’ve been acting more as your vice president than your assistant for two years.”

_“Don’t act like you make any decisions,”_ Oikawa replies, voice sounding bored. _“You just carry out whatever I say.”_

This time, Iwaizumi does groan, rolling his eyes. His headache has started to pound again now that he’s speaking to Oikawa, thoughts from earlier forcing themselves present. Oikawa takes Iwaizumi’s lack of reply as a chance to continue talking.

_“I need you to come here. There’s something I need you to see,”_ Oikawa says, voice edging on excited.

“When?”

_“As soon as possible. Tonight, if you can.”_

“Absolutely not!” Iwaizumi barks. “I have shit to do, Oikawa.”

_“You mean the company? Come on, it practically runs itself,”_ Oikawa whines.

“No, it does not,” Iwaizumi counters. “And _why_ exactly do you need me?”

_“Secret!”_ Oikawa chimes. 

Iwaizumi sighs, knowing better than to even try to ask where Oikawa is. “I can come tomorrow night, sometime in the evening. I’ll catch a red eye flight.”

_“I can send a private jet, Iwa-chan. See? I knew you’d agree!”_ Oikawa exclaims. 

“Not like I had a choice,” Iwaizumi mutters. 

_“Anyways, I’ll forward you travel details momentarily. Pack for cool weather, it’s rather chilly this time of year,”_ Oikawa continues, ignoring Iwaizumi’s statement. _“I’ll see you then!”_

Oikawa hangs up before Iwaizumi can say goodbye. Muttering things he would never be brave enough to say to his face, Iwaizumi hangs up, and tucks his phone back into his pocket.

He should’ve given up understanding Oikawa a long time ago, but something pulls him to try and unravel the enigma he’s surrounded himself in. Something bigger than himself, something dangerous, twisted, beautiful.

—

Daedalus Tech, founded, created, and run by Oikawa Tooru, is an enormous company. The Tokyo office alone is a maze of security scanners, starry eyed interns, and people with documents held in files that read classified in big, bold, red letters. It’s expected, of not only the world’s most used browser, but of the man who created the highest standard of supercomputer technology.

Iwaizumi, as his right hand assistant, receives smiles and words of welcomes as he maneuvers through the halls. His arms are filled with files and things that could’ve been done three weeks ago if he had the time, and only an inkling of him can feel bad for the gruff response he gives to the secretary on his way out.

His suitcase awaits him in the car, a sleek black van, the driver, illusive, steely eyed. Iwaizumi clears his throat, ready to give a destination, but the driver simply nods and begins on his way. Iwaizumi sighs. He should’ve expected this much from Oikawa.

Car rides turn into flights on a private jet, too roomy to feel comfortable. Iwaizumi spends the flight watching clouds pass, the sky bold and blue once they rise above the layer of grey. The unsettling emotion continues to gnaw at his stomach, tearing holes in his digestive system, leaving sleep dancing at the grasp of his fingertips.

When the flight ends, he is ushered into a helicopter, the pilot sending him a toothy grin as Iwaizumi ducks under the rotors and into the cab. Securing the headphones around his head, the pilot’s voice fills his ears, chipper and bright. 

“Ready for take off?” he asks, already raising the helicopter from the ground.

Iwaizumi simply raises a brow, and leans back into his chair.

Norway, he figures, is where he is. After the airport becomes a dot in a massive sea of green, Iwaizumi realizes they couldn’t be farther from civilization. He peers down at the scene below, massive streams of sapphire and teal cutting through the lush forest. Trees of massive size, arms reaching up towards Iwaizumi, coating the landscape in sales of green, a soft blanket of treetop leaves. It isn’t long before Iwaizumi is enchanted by the winding scenery, the steady ebb of the river’s waves slowly moving forward.

“Where is the estate?” Iwaizumi asks, voice scratchy through the microphone.

The pilot barks out a laugh. “You’re looking at it.”

They land in a cleared field, wildflowers of yellow and blue flattening as the helicopter touches the ground. Iwaizumi can smell primrose and tulips, even through the exhaust of the chopper.

“Follow the river to the building!” the pilot shouts. “And mind the rotors when you leave!”

Iwaizumi nods, pulling his headphones off and gripping his suitcase, ducking down as the helicopter takes off. Soon, it becomes a black dot in the grey sky, fading to nothingness in seconds.

The air chills Iwaizumi even through his jacket, raising the hairs on his arms. The forest is silent, albeit for the wind rushing through the trees and his hair. Iwaizumi sighs, closing his eyes for a moment, allowing his mind to catch up to his body. Something about the loneliness of standing in an empty field makes the pit of his stomach swell enough for him to feel queasy, even with the fresh air biting through his coat. Iwaizumi snaps open his eyes, muttering under his breath as he hikes his bag higher up his shoulder and moves to follow the river. 

The clearing soon leads to lush, forested brush, the scent of pine and early fall engulfing Iwaizumi’s senses. It’s another half hour trek to the main building, but Iwaizumi doesn't mind, choosing instead to watch the leaves fall, listen to the birds sing, observe the way the clear water rushes over top of the river stones. 

When Iwaizumi finally reaches what he can only assume is Oikawa’s house, it is a relief to his aching bones. The building is just as large as Iwaizumi imagined, winding down a hill, shrouded by trees and ferns. The door is heavy steel, and what looks to be the main entrance is void of windows.

An electronic female voice speaks as Iwaizumi approaches, startling him enough to stumble.

“Iwaizumi Hajime,” the computer says, “Please approach console for fingerprint scan.”

Iwaizumi complies, pressing his fingers to the touch pad on the wall. It chimes, lighting up a soft shade of blue, and the door beside Iwaizumi clicks, swinging open with a loud whoosh.

Iwaizumi steps through the doorway, jumping again as it slams behind him. The foyer is much brighter than he expected, stone walls and pine ceilings illuminated by a glass staircase, sunlight free to shine through. Iwaizumi tentatively makes his way down the stairs, turning his head to the crystal chandelier that dangles above his head, catching the light and sending it dancing across the lounge below.

“You made it on time,” a voice says, smooth and sharp from a chair in the lounge. Iwaizumi looks down as he descends the last step, coming face-to-face with Oikawa Tooru.

Oikawa is dressed smartly, to an extent — white button down shirt tucked into black skinny jeans that would probably cost the entirety of Iwaizumi’s paycheck, socks with miniature coffee cups on his feet. His glasses perch high on the bridge of his nose, a characteristic he neglects to share at work or in business, and his hair is strew, brown locks curling wildly at the ends.

“You haven’t changed,” Iwaizumi says, smirking despite himself. It’s the truth; Oikawa hasn’t suddenly buzzed his head or grown a beard, and his sense of style has yet to be altered.

Oikawa scoffs, rolling his eyes at Iwaizumi’s comment. “You’re acting as if we haven’t met in years, Iwa-chan.”

“It’s been six months, you idiot,” Iwaizumi grumbles. “No contact besides email, leaving _me_ to tell the reporters the same made up story.”

Oikawa laughs, bitter plastic aftertaste audible in his tone. “Thank you for that, by the way. Come on in, you’ve got to be starved.”

Iwaizumi follows without complaint, his stomach being reason enough to follow Oikawa through another hallway to the kitchen. 

They eat dinner in silence, Oikawa swirling his glass of wine in his hand as Iwaizumi eats. He remembered what Iwaizumi liked; whiskey on ice, but the entire meal is spent with Oikawa looking bored, antsy, as if anticipation is the only thing running through him. Iwaizumi thinks that it’s very possible it is.

When he finally finishes his plate, Oikawa sighs in relief, leaning forwards onto his elbows to stare Iwaizumi down. It’s hard for most to focus under the pressure of Oikawa’s unwavering gaze, but Iwaizumi fares well with practice, challenging it as Oikawa’s lips curl into a grin.

“Now Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says, placing his glass onto the table. “Do you want to see what will revolutionize life as we know it?”

Iwaizumi sits up at this question, narrows his eyes and furrows his brow. He doesn't doubt Oikawa’s hyperbole in the slightest, nor does he ignore the fact that the curiosity burning inside him is enough to drive him to say yes seconds after Oikawa finishes speaking.

Oikawa quirks a brow at his answer, satisfied as if he had won a game, and reaches for the bag at his foot, pulling out a huge stack of paper.

“Paperwork,” Oikawa says, fishing a pen from his sleeve. “Sign at the end of pages five, eleven, and twenty-three.”

Iwaizumi has signed enough of Oikawa’s documents in his life to question the contents, and in seconds, he has signed the paper in curly black ink. Oikawa grins, motioning for Iwaizumi to follow him through another hallway, deeper into the building, void of any windows. Iwaizumi is vaguely aware that they must be underground at this point, but it’s hard to think coherently when the walls are lined with artwork made of copper wire and paint.

The hallway seems to continue forever, and the two round corner after corner, making their way through a maze of staircases and doors left unopened. Iwaizumi feels as if he is in a hospital, stark white lights, the scent of sterilization working its way into him. It makes him sick with nervousness and fear, and by the time they reach a door where Oikawa stops, Iwaizumi couldn’t be more relieved. Oikawa presses a finger to his pouted lips, a simple message, silence. Iwaizumi nods and obeys as the two slip into the room.

It’s a small space, empty except for the glass that spits the wall. Its hazy enough that Iwaizumi suspects it to be a one way mirror, and his suspicions are confirmed when Oikawa speaks.

“He can’t see us, but we can see him,” Oikawa says, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

Iwaizumi is confused until he spots something standing by the window in the other room. It looks humanoid in shape, with a slender torso and short legs. Iwaizumi squints as it begins to move towards the centre of the room, face turned from his own. As it grows closer, Iwaizumi spots it: whirling mechanisms inside of the transparent torso, wires circling through the arms and legs, sleek, metal framing, moving as if it was skin across its chest. Iwaizumi looks closer, to the hands, which look as human as his own, a warm beige shade, and head, wild, orange hair standing upwards, face silhouetted in the setting sunlight.

“Artificial intelligence,” Iwaizumi whispers. 

“Artificial life,” Oikawa replies, voice equally as enchanted as his own.

The machine turns its head, revealing a young face, soft brown eyes, flushed cheeks and parted lips. Iwaizumi freezes as it catches his gaze, cocking its head ever so slightly.

“My greatest creation, Hinata Shouyou,” Oikawa continues. “Life itself.”

—

Iwaizumi can barely think straight that night, tossing and turning in his bed, thoughts of the android, Hinata, clouding his mind. Iwaizumi takes a deep breath, sitting up to cup his face in his hands. The clock beside him reads four-thirty, jet lag in full force. Looking to his bedside table, Iwaizumi spots a sleek, buttonless remote. As he picks it up, symbols light up, and he can only suppose it’s for the television in front of him.

Iwaizumi turns on the T.V., not surprised that the cable hasn't been hooked up. There is an option to switch to DVD, but Iwaizumi has none on hand. He flicks through the other useless options until he comes across monitor footage of the hallways.

Curious, Iwaizumi continues to flick through the cameras, showing the foyer, the kitchen, a few of the patio outside, until he comes across one of the room he was in the night before. Iwaizumi spots Hinata, kneeling on small cushion, hands pressed to silver plates against the wall. Iwaizumi looks closer at the wires protruding from both of Hinata’s ears, confused as to their purpose. 

Hinata looks peaceful, eyes hovering closed, head hung low, almost touching the wall in front of him. Iwaizumi watches Hinata’s eerie stillness, his body completely still save the whirring mechanics inside his body. Iwaizumi looks down to the remote in his palm, switches the channel hoping for another view, only for the camera to switch to the kitchen. The screen shows Oikawa, sitting on a countertop, busying himself with what looks to be breakfast. Iwaizumi sighs, realizing he now has an excuse to get up, and reaches for a shirt in his suitcase.

It’s easy enough to get back upstairs from his bedroom, and when he finally does, Oikawa doesn't look surprised to see him. They’ve known each other long enough that Oikawa doesn't try to talk to Iwaizumi before he has poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down. Only then does Oikawa even smile, a knowing smirk, sipping at from his own mug.

“Cereal?” he offers, raising the box beside him upside down and almost spilling it. Iwaizumi rolls his eyes, shaking his head and gulping down his coffee instead of answering.

Oikawa is dramatic as he huffs, placing the box back onto the counter and pulling his legs up to cross as he continues to eat his cereal. It’s a rather odd sight to get used to, a stark contrast to the man in thousand dollar suits, seeing him in alien printed pyjamas and thick framed glasses.

“You were watching the cameras?” Oikawa asks, bringing his bowl to his lips to sip the excess milk.

Iwaizumi furrows his brow. “How did you know?”

“Why else would you come into the kitchen and not spare me a second glance?” Oikawa shoots back. He slips off the counter, grabbing his dish and slipping it into the dishwasher.

Talking comes easier to Iwaizumi now that caffeine slowly works its way through his veins. “What was Hinata doing?” Iwaizumi asks.

“You saw him on the cameras?” Oikawa asks. “He was charging, receptors in the palms. It’s necessary he charges once every other day for a few hours. He’ll wander around and come up here sometime soon. Maybe not, he might be a bit uncertain about you.”

“You let him walk freely?” Iwaizumi presses. The thought seems unlike Oikawa, someone who strives for control over any and everything he can touch.

Oikawa nods, leaning up against the fridge. “What, you think I was gonna keep him locked up? If he’s a conscious being, then he’d naturally develop a sense of fear for me, which is counter intuitive. He’s not allowed outside without me being there, naturally, but he can roam the building freely.”

Iwaizumi nods in agreement, taking another sip of coffee in lieu of an answer. Oikawa seems bored with his presence, and turns to leave, but before he can, Iwaizumi speaks up again.

“What were those wires in his ears then?” Iwaizumi asks, curious.

Oikawa snorts, letting out a crude laugh. “Earbuds. He likes listening to music while he charges.”

Oikawa scoffs at Iwaizumi’s dumbfounded expression, and he wanders out of the kitchen and towards his own room.

It's odd, having another person in his home besides Hinata. Oikawa isn’t quite used to it, seeing a person with flesh and bone and bodily functions that can’t be solved with coding and wires. He sighs, closing his bedroom door behind him and shucking off his pyjama pants.

Despite living with what many would chalk down to a robot, Oikawa has never felt lonely. Hinata is good company - engaging, curious, soft hearted, maybe even too soft hearted for the likes of Oikawa. It may be sad to some, to consider wires and metal your friend, but Hinata is more than just a piece of technology. He laughs like church bells, and smiles brighter than the sun. Oikawa wants to believe he is sentient, as real as any other person, but knows there is always something clouding his view.

As he buttons his shirt, he hears a mechanical whir past by his door. As he brushes the tangles from his hair, he feels his stomach flutter.

—

Hinata does not speak to Iwaizumi at first. 

Iwaizumi tries not to take offence to the way he flinches at the sight of him when he enters the room, deer footed, eyes wide, examining the room. Hinata is faintly self conscious of the noises he makes as he emerges from the hall, aware that he is the one making the most noise in the room with the new man. Iwaizumi looks warm, skin tanned, eyes amber and green, a kind of foresty scent radiating from him that Hinata can connect to the trees outside.

He moves cautiously to the other side of the room, eyes fixated on Iwaizumi, never leaving him. The gaze bores into Iwaizumi’s skull, enough to make his stomach clench and toes curl in nervousness. Hinata must’ve sensed it, because he straightens, taking a single step forward.

“Where is Oikawa?” he asks, voice surprisingly light. His eyes are apprehensive, as if Iwaizumi needs to coax each word, each response from his parted lips. Iwaizumi forgets to answer for a moment, realizing Hinata is waiting, and coughs.

“He probably went to get dressed,” Iwaizumi replies. He opens his mouth to speak again, but Hinata cuts him off.

“Who are you?” he asks, taking another step closer. Iwaizumi can see how short he is now, a good six or seven inches smaller than him, his slight and transparent frame aiding to making him seem even smaller.

“Iwaizumi Hajime,” Iwaizumi replies. He is afraid to move and scare Hinata off, but Hinata stays put, drumming his fingertips against his thigh.

“Oikawa told me you’d be visiting,” Hinata says. “My name is Shouyou. Hinata Shouyou.”

Iwaizumi isn't sure of what to say, and Hinata’s gaze stays locked in his. Wasn’t his task to come here, to observe Hinata? What was he supposed to do? To say? 

Hinata is wary, but he pulls out a chair from the dining table, sits cross legged in it. There is something familiar in the way he folds himself, the way he leans forward onto his elbows to inspect Iwaizumi, but he cannot place his finger on it. Hinata cocks his head slightly, face inching so close that Iwaizumi suspects that if Hinata had breath, he would feel it.

Iwaizumi lets his eyes wander Hinata’s face, examining how truly lifelike it appears. The false skin, stretched over top of whatever mechanics lie underneath, is smooth, moving much like any human’s would. Iwaizumi flicks his eyes up towards Hinata’s, looks at how his glassy pupils whir and expand as he focuses on him.

They’re close, awkwardly so, Iwaizumi realizes. Clearing his throat, he presses his back against his chair in attempt to create space between their noses, but Hinata only follows, climbing on top of the table, knocking over Iwaizumi’s cup of coffee and very nearly spilling it all over him.

Iwaizumi is flustered, to say the least. Hinata is unfathomably close to him, their foreheads almost touching, Iwaizumi’s eyes needing to blur and cross in order to focus on the boy in front of him. And yet, Iwaizumi makes no move to push him away, makes no noise of disgust, no effort to show how uncomfortable he feels.

“So,” Iwaizumi says, desperate to break the silence between them. “You were listening to music?”

Hinata abruptly leans back, sits onto his heels and tilts his head. The new space between them allows Iwaizumi to exhale freely, not even aware that he had held his breath prior.

“You watched me on the cameras,” Hinata states, eyes still fixed unmoving on Iwaizumi.

Iwaizumi nods, suddenly aware that, despite his appearance, Hinata is capable of feelings, to an extent. “Does that make you uncomfortable?” he asks. 

Hinata shakes his head. “No, it’s just-” he says, pausing for a moment. “Never mind.”

Iwaizumi is surprised at the response, but continues the conversation nonetheless, fearful of another tense pause.

“What music do you like?” he asks.

Hinata perks up at the question, eyes sparkling at the question. He wriggles his fingers before answering, rocking forwards slightly in excitement.

“I listen to everything,” he responds. “Stravinsky, Hirashai, Queen, FKA Twigs, Elvis Presley, Mozart, One Direction. I especially like Kero Kero Bonito.”

“Kero Kero… Bonito?” Iwaizumi asks, slightly confused.

Hinata nods wildly, eyes widening. “Her music goes all _bam_! Then it goes _swoosh_ and _pow_!”

Iwaizumi smiles slightly at Hinata’s choice of words, a tiny laugh escape his lips. Hinata’s eyes brighten in response, a grin wide and colourful appearing, extending from his eyes to his cheeks. It’s innocent, almost childish the way Hinata smiles, speaks, interacts, sickly sweet like sugar pops and maple syrup on snow. Iwaizumi can’t help but let the tension slip from his shoulders watching Hinata’s glee.

It's something he can’t name, the way Hinata speaks. Something confusing, carefree, and eerily human.

—

Oikawa is typing on his computer, glasses slipping down his nose, when he hears the familiar tap against his study room door. Oikawa sighs, pushing away from his desk, spinning his chair to face the door. Running his fingers through his hair, he shouts door, making sure to drop his hands to his sides before it swings open. Hinata stands, hands behind his back, eyes flicking between Oikawa and the floor.

“Are you busy?” he asks, finally choosing to look Oikawa in the eye.

Oikawa shakes his head. “I have stuff to do, but I can always stop to talk to you, Hina-chan.”

Hinata nods, smiling to himself before padding towards Oikawa. Oikawa stands, reaching for his jacket hung on the back of his chair and throwing it over his shoulder. Hinata waits in the doorway, expectant as he drags his toe on the ground, hands clasped behind his back.

Oikawa knows what he wants, but plays coy, pauses as if he is evaluating Hinata’s disposition. In reality, the time he takes it to admire the way Hinata shyly lifts his gaze to Oikawa’s only to flick his eyes back towards the ground, biting his lip. Oikawa smiles, thinks, is this sadism, enjoying the look of his nerves, and sighs, too loud, dramatic enough that he hopes Hinata picks up that he is joking.

“Hinata?” he asks, voicing as if he just figured it out. “Do you want a sweater?”

Hinata looks up, eyes bright, hopeful, wondrous. He nods, grin infectious, growing roses and dandelions in Oikawa’s lungs, making it hard to breath. Oikawa grabs a sweater off the floor, tawny and knit, and Hinata lifts up his arms, turns his chin up to stare Oikawa in the eye. Oikawa breaths out a laugh, tugging the sweater over the machinery of Hinata’s arms, covering the transparent window of wires and inner workings. 

The sweater is much too big, collar slipping off of Hinata’s shoulders, sleeves hiding his hands. Hinata doesn't seem to care that he drowns in the fabric, smiling with glee and he adjusts it around his hips. When he looks back up to Oikawa, his smile is smaller, softer, creating a kind of dull ache in Oikawa’s chest he can’t ignore.

They walk upstairs, Hinata trailing two steps behind Oikawa, smiling as the sunlight beams down on him through the glass staircase.

“We’re going outside?” he asks, eyes wide.

Oikawa nods. “Thought you’d like to walk through the trails again.”

Hinata grins, practically vibrating with excitement. He freezes when Oikawa moves to open the heavy front door, causing Oikawa to pause.

“Where is Iwaizumi?” Hinata asks.

Oikawa bites back the sigh that pushes forward from the back of his throat. “He’s probably sleeping, Shou-chan.”

Hinata nods at Oikawa’s reply, satisfied with his answer. The two walk out into the forest, cool air biting into Oikawa’s knuckles as he follows Hinata towards the trails along the estate. Hinata looks up at the shrouded skyline of trees, reaching his hands towards the sky in attempt to catch the leaves that twirl down. Oikawa smiles to himself, grabs Hinata’s hand and tugs him forwards. Hinata looks up at him in surprise, mouth falling into an o as he looks down at their joined hands. Just as Oikawa’s heart begins to race, he smiles, swinging their arms as they walk forwards.

Oikawa doesn't know why he does, why he indulges the curiosities of the machine he should be testing. Hinata is nothing more than a program, a collection of wires and synthetic skin stretched over metal and plastic, and yet, OIkawa can’t help but feel like life really does sit in his hands when he watches Hinata kneel down to pick flowers and admire their colours.

Oikawa pauses to watch him run his fingers over the petals, delicate, careful of the way they bruise. Oikawa leans down and plucks one from the forest floor, a bundle of pale blue forget-me-nots. Hinata doesn't see him approaching from behind, and jumps in surprise when Oikawa tucks the flowers behind his ear. Hinata straightens, look up at Oikawa in something akin to fear as he raises his fingers to touch the flowers resting next to his hair.

“Pretty,” Oikawa says with a smile.

“Pretty,” Hinata repeats, smile growing as he looks down to his feet, a dull sensation spreading throughout his chest. 

They two walk for a little longer, Oikawa pointing out the different flowers and their names, Hinata stopping to pick them, his fist bursting with flowers of every kind. The scent of the woods and daisies rises to Oikawa’s nose, something familiar, something he’s begun to associate with the boy beside him.

“What do you think of Iwaizumi?” Oikawa asks, desperate to snap himself out of the state of mind he rests in.

Hinata turns his head to Oikawa, tilting it slightly. “He’s different.”

“Different?” Oikawa asks. “How so?”

Hinata shrugs. “He seems… tense.”

Oikawa snorts, laughter spilling from his lungs before he can stop it. “That’s Iwa-chan for you.”

—

 

“So what do you think of him?” Oikawa asks him over a bottle of rosé, evening wind blowing through the both of them. “Hinata, I mean.”

Iwaizumi stumbles on an answer, ideas incoherent, strewn throughout his mind in no particular order. Iwaizumi would like to say something lax, say something like he usually would, an insult, a jab, but something holds him back. He is faintly aware of Oikawa’s gaze, hawk eyes piercing into his head. He isn’t sure what to say. It’s not unlikely that Oikawa would send him away if he doesn't prove useful, and the possibility of Oikawa expecting a calculated response is high. Iwaizumi wouldn't usually worry, but something inside him ignites fear at the thought of saying any sort of jab.

When Iwaizumi answers, it’s slowly, after a pause. “I think he’s incredible,” Iwaizumi replies, hoping he sounds sincere.

“Of course he’s incredible, he’s a machine that acts human,” Oikawa shoots back. “Now skip the bullshit and tell me what you really think.”

Iwaizumi huffs, biting his lip. Genuine isn’t good enough in this moment, and it’s clear Oikawa grows more and more bored with the passing minute, from the drumming of his fingers against the arm of his chair, to the sour expression displayed on his face.

“He’s odd, to be frank. I don’t think he trusts me,” Iwaizumi tells Oikawa. When Oikawa doesn't make any move to speak, Iwaizumi allows himself to continue.

“He climbed onto the table and stared me down when he first spotted me,” Iwaizumi explains.

“He likes sitting on counters and tables. I’m not really sure why,” Oikawa says.

Iwaizumi doesn't know how to respond, so he doesn’t, mentally chalking it down to an odd glitch in Hinata’s mechanisms. When nothing is said between the two of them, Oikawa simply sighs, exasperated, and stands.

“If you want him to trust you,” Oikawa says, refilling his glass and wandering back indoors, “Then maybe you should become his friend first.”

With that, Oikawa leaves Iwaizumi alone on the patio, with the autumn wind biting into his cheeks and expensive wine half drunk in his glass. 

Iwaizumi groans, rubbing his face with his hands. It’s well past eleven now, midnight approaching with every passing moment. Iwaizumi feels like every movement is through molasses, like his bones are sewn to wear he sits. With heavy limbs, he pulls himself upwards, groggily making his way back to the warmth that indoors provides. 

The hallways back to his room are a maze of fingerprint scanners and dead ends, Iwaizumi cursing himself for forgetting which way is which. Each turn looks the same, beige walls illuminated by blue florescent lights and amber doors. Iwaizumi presses his hand to a random door, prayer it is his, only to groan when a light flicks red.

“Iwaizumi,” a voice says.

Iwaizumi turns to face Hinata, the bot whirring, transparent body of wires cover by a thick cream sweater. He is peering out from behind a corner, and when Iwaizumi turns, he jumps out of view. After a moment he pokes his head out once again, as if testing the waters, and his face light up when he sees that Iwaizumi hasn’t left. He scampers closer, eyes wide, expecting, and Iwaizumi can’t help himself, a smile already on his lips as Hinata approaches. It drops for a moment when Hinata grabs his wrist, tugging him forwards with excitement, but returns shortly after at the sight of someone half a foot shorter trying to pull him.

“Where are you taking me?” Iwaizumi asks as Hinata continues to pull. 

“I wanna show you something,” he replies, voice bubbly.

Iwaizumi doesn’t protest, allows himself to be led through the maze of hallways without fuss. He isn't sure how Hinata could tell one door from another, whether it was memory or programming. Either way, Hinata suddenly stopped at a door that looks like all the rest, somehow knowing it is his own. Iwaizumi watches with interest as he places his fingertips to the scanner, the machine humming in recognition, and the door swings open. 

“How do you do that?” Iwaizumi asks, instantly regretting how inconsiderate his tone sounded. “I just mean, you don’t have fingerprints or—”

Hinata holds up his hand, spreading his fingers in front of Iwaizumi’s nose. He readjusts his focus to his fingertips, and gingerly rubs the glowing swirls atop each digit. Among the false skin that onto goes as far as the beginning of his wrist is intricacies of any other human hand. Iwaizumi shakes his head in disbelief, at the feat of engineering, at how human Oikawa managed to make Hinata seem. 

Hinata waits until Iwaizumi drops his hand to lead him into the room. It’s above ground, large windows exposing the lush forest outside. In the corner is a desk, papers and various utensils askew over the top. A single bed is pushed against the opposite wall, covers haphazardly tucked as if it was made in a rush. The white walls are all bare save the large mirror against the wall where they entered, and it isn’t until Iwaizumi spots this that he realizes this is the room where he first saw Hinata. 

The floor is littered with pillows and blankets. Hinata looks nervously to him, eyes flicking between him and the floor as he wanders over to pick something off of a plush fur blanket. Iwaizumi tentatively steps closer, watching as Hinata sits down, crossing his legs and flicking through a small audio player. Iwaizumi sits down beside him, leaving a foot of space between their knees as Hinata untangles the wires of the headphones.

Hinata scoots closer and turns to that they’re facing each other, knees touching, and hands him the headphones. Iwaizumi mumbles a thank you, taking the headphones from Hinata’s outstretched palm. Whether by accident or subconscious purpose, or simply the alcohol drumming in his veins, he lets his fingers linger a moment too long on the cool false skin, watching how Hinata reacts to the touch. Hinata’s eyes jump from Iwaizumi to their hands, and he seems to only grow smaller inside of his oversized sweater.

Iwaizumi finally pulls his hand away, fitting the headphones inside of each ear. Hinata waits a moment before pressing a button on his device and looking back up at Iwaizumi, awaiting his reaction. 

Music fills Iwaizumi’s ear, a mix of low, thumping synths, echoing electric guitar, and some kind of traditional instrument Iwaizumi can’t name. It’s haunting at the same time as it is powerful, like fog on fall mornings on old country roads, frost in the middle of June, hurricanes ripping through wind chimes. Iwaizumi finds his eyelids fluttering to a close, letting himself fall into the sounds, letting himself become hyper aware of the way Hinata’s knees press against his own.

When the song dwindles to an end, Iwaizumi opens his eyes, and hardly reacts to seeing Hinata an inch from his nose. Hinata licks his lips, smiling hesitantly before reaching upwards to remove the headphone from Iwaizumi’s right ear. Iwaizumi isn’t sure if it’s purposeful, how Hinata runs his fingers through his hair, how he leans forward just enough that their chests brush. When he sits back down, Hinata is smiling.

“That song,” Hinata says, voice barely louder than a whisper. “Is my favourite.”

Iwaizumi doesn't know what to say about the way Hinata looks toward him, only that for just a moment, he forgets that Hinata is a machine.


	2. the chess simulator

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for the amazing response on part one!!!!!!!  
> this part was betad by mooksmookin~

Oikawa leads Iwaizumi through a double set of doors, passing him a pair of latex gloves as they enter a sterile white room. It’s familiar to Oikawa, the smell of copper and a slight metallic taste to the air. He looks behind him to see Iwaizumi scowling at the sensation and snickers. The action earns him a punch to the shoulder, but Oikawa only fake whimpers, satisfied with Iwaizumi’s relative discomfort.

When Oikawa had approached Iwaizumi earlier that day, with a demand posed as a question to visit the lab, Iwaizumi had pounced on the opportunity to see how Hinata worked. Oikawa doesn't doubt that Iwaizumi was still curious about every piece of technology hidden behind glass, but it was clear that he felt out of place next to everything in the room. Oikawa, however, is in his element. Surrounded by the world of wires and numbers, where he didn't need to worry about acting nice, where cold logic could slap him in the face and point which way to go, Oikawa feels comfortable.

He smiles towards Iwaizumi, momentarily smug at the curiosity in his features as he looks over the numerous gadgets encased in glass. Oikawa strides to the other side of the container, lifting the lid off and setting it aside. He grins as he reaches in, pulling out the metal skeleton of the hand and turning it over so Iwaizumi could see.

“The skin was the hardest part of making that actual body,” he tells Iwaizumi. “You see all these other attempts at humanoid robots and see how thick the skin is, and think, thinner must be the way to go, right? In reality, it isn’t.”

Oikawa slips his fingers down the side on the pinky finger, digging his fingertips into a groove Iwaizumi hadn’t noticed was there before. Oikawa begins to lift the skin, revealing the wires and metal underneath. Iwaizumi furrows his brow as Oikawa hands him the limb, allowing him to turn it over in his own hands. 

“The trick was synthesizing all the layers of human flesh. The wires act as the very basic muscles, metal framing as bones, but everyone in the robotics industry seemed to have forgotten the fatty bits aren’t made of skin. It was hard to get right, but the end result takes away the look of rubber stretched over some wires.”

Iwaizumi nods, placing the skin back down and lifting it up again. “How does it do this? I can’t see where the groove is.”

“Semisolid mesh, magnetics. A combination of things,” Oikawa replies.

“Is there any reason you left most of Hinata’s body without the skin coating?” Iwaizumi asks. 

Oikawa snorts. “What, you want him to walk around naked, Iwa-chan?”

Iwaizumi huffs, handing Oikawa back the hand and moving to read something on the wall. Oikawa sighs as he watches him read the post-its stuck on the wall, the notes next to each work place. Oikawa wanders back to his computer, humming as it boots up.

It’s easy to get engrossed in work, especially when that work is simply numbers, monitoring inputs and outputs, tracking inefficiencies and sifting through the large mound of company files he should be attending to. There’s a file in his personal folder from his mother, simply titled _if you ever come back, this is what you’ve missed,_ and Oikawa half wants to reach for the bottle of wine he keeps in his drawer.

He’s drawn out of his thoughts by a cough from Iwaizumi, and doesn’t make an effort to wipe the bitterness off of his tongue when he replies _what do you want_ offhandedly. When he turns, it’s too see Iwaizumi looking at the glassy sculpted orb lying inside of a locked case. OIkawa drops his shoulders, lets a genuine smile grace his lips as he exhales.

“The brain,” Oikawa says, standing to cross the room. Iwaizumi looks back to face him, surprised that he’s left his workplace, but doesn’t protest when Oikawa unlocks the display, reaching in to remove the orb.

“It was a joy to get away from wires. A challenge, but a joy nonetheless,” Oikawa says. “The brain houses the AI that is programmed into it, so, for lack of a better analogy, this is a house without an owner.”

Iwaizumi shakes his head in disbelief, running his gloved fingers over the smooth surface. “How?” he whispers, voice quiet with a tone akin to fear. “How is this possible?”

“A living machine. The brain allows for expansion, for growth and change,” Oikawa says, eyes softening, He takes the orb from Iwaizumi’s hands, turning it over in his palms.

“Memories,” he whispers, voice dropping low enough that Iwaizumi shudders in discomfort. “Thoughts, ideas, fears, personality - his very essence of being is stored here. Even if he was programmed to already understand language, to already be an adult, it doesn't limit his capability to learn skills like anyone else.”

Iwaizumi realizes that they are no longer refering to a program, but a machine with a face and a peculiar way of communicating. Iwaizumi isn’t sure what to say, swallows the thickening knot in his throat as Oikawa stares at the orb, eyes half lidded, smiles dancing on his lips, loving on the border of inane. 

And then, Oikawa is no longer in the room with Iwaizumi, but in his own mind, reliving memories of laughter and a boy, a machine, a machine, a machine, and nothing more. A machine that can smile and speak and be as human as anything else.

“A machine,” Oikawa whispers. “A living machine.”

—

Hinata walks into the kitchen and steps in a puddle of water.

Objectively, he knows what a puddle is. A pool of water, usually from rain, that collects outdoors in divots and potholes in the ground. He hasn’t, however, had the luxury of stepping in one firsthand.

He’s made to be waterproof, of course. He knows that fact, and it isn’t as if he hasn’t had water drip onto him before. But something about the coolness of the water as it slips between his toes, something about how it slicks them enough to shine causes Hinata to stop, abandoning the task of looking for Oikawa.

Hinata looks down at his toes, wriggling them, clicks his heels together. He looks around, trying to spot where the water could’ve leaked in. A gust of cool wind blows from the left, and Hinata jumps, looking towards the opened window. Another splash of water falls through the open window, and the source of the puddle clicks inside of Hinata’s mind. He takes a step closer, knowing Oikawa would be upset if the puddle grew any larger. The window is easy enough to close: pinch the clasps, yank down, but Hinata has to rise to his toes to reach, and by the time he’s pulled down the window, he has stumbled to the floor, landing in the puddle he was trying to clean.

The first thought that pops into Hinata’s mind once he’s managed to pull himself off the floor is _I’m glad I wasn’t wearing Oikawa’s sweater._ The water rolls off of his mechanic body, but it clings a little more to the faux skin of his hands feet and face. Hinata scrunches his nose, wiping it from his eyes, watching it create ripples in the puddle when it lands. 

Hinata cocks his head, holding out his hand so that another droplet of water can roll off of it and into the puddle. The same effect takes places, and the tiny waves bounce off of Hinata’s feet as they travel across the puddle. Hinata tentatively lifts his foot, setting it back down in hope to see the ripples again. Instead, the water splashes upwards, the sudden reaction making Hinata jump again. Once the initial surprise wears off, Hinata finds himself giggling, raising his foot again to stop hard this time.

It soon becomes a game, of jumping and stomping in the shallow water, all thoughts cleaning ignored in favour of the joy that comes from puddle jumping. Hinata lets another laugh slip through his lips, feet chilled with water and slippery as he jumps once more.

A voice breaks through the otherwise silence of Hinata’s laugher, 

“Hinata?” Iwaizumi asks, peering at him from the doorway.

Hinata turns around to face Iwaizumi, smile wide as he waves, still standing in the puddle.

“What are you doing?” Iwaizumi asks. His voice is gruff, slightly annoyed on the edge of worried. For a brief moment, Hinata fears he is in trouble.

“I was going to look for Oikawa, but I saw there was water,” Hinata explains, rushing through his words. “It’s from the rain.”

Iwaizumi looks at Hinata; he bites his lip, smiles slightly as he blinks hard twice. 

“You’re confused,” Hinata says. It was the first thing that came to mind, a thought he toyed with as Iwaizumi looked him up and down. He could rationalize why; Iwaizumi doesn’t know Hinata very well, it could be uncommon custom to splash in puddles in a kitchen—

“Can you get wet?” Iwaizumi asks, pulling Hinata from processing. Hinata blinks, focusing back on the person in front of him. 

“Yes,” Hinata replies. He’s slightly tired now, bored of the situation, bored of talking about himself. “Can you pass me the towels? I should clean this up.”

Iwaizumi shakes his head, opens his mouth as if he is about to answer, but another voice cuts him off.

“Shou-chan, Iwa-chan can do it,” Oikawa says, walking into the kitchen, a binder under one arm. “Come on, let’s clean you up.”

Hinata jumps, eyes widening as he obediently steps out from the puddle and scurries over towards Oikawa. He turns to Iwaizumi, offering him a smile and wave before he leaves. Iwaizumi’s expression is perplexed, and he shakes his head.

As Hinata follows Oikawa down the hall, he can faintly hear Iwaizumi speak. 

“Hinata,” he murmurs. “How strange.”

—

Hinata sits on a glass countertop in the lab, kicking his feet idly as Oikawa wipes the water from his legs. He isn’t mad, much to Hinata’s relief, but the two remain silent as Oikawa checks that the water hadn’t slipped into Hinata’s mechanics. Careful hands move across his legs, stilling them as he kicks. Hinata knows he should feel somewhat bad for just making this harder, and pauses his legs in a moment of guilt. Oikawa looks up at him, brow quirked, and the action is enough to make Hinata mumble an apology.

Hinata watches Oikawa, observes the way his hair falls over his eyes, shadowing his face with ashy brown. Hinata feels compelled to run his fingers through it, to feel whether or not it is as soft as his eyes in this moment, if it will feel anything like the elation that came with jumping puddles.

For some reason, he doesn’t.

“Why did Iwaizumi call me strange?” Hinata asks. He wants to think about anything that isn’t Oikawa right now, and he isn’t sure why. He plays with his hands behind his back for lack of anything to do. The action is pointless, he realizes, and he soon lets his hands fall back to his sides.

Oikawa looks up at him, and begins to stand so that their faces are level. Oikawa brushes his knuckles against Hinata’s cheek, an action Hinata can only assume intimate. Hinata watches as Oikawa smiles, not quite looking him in the eye. Hinata can feel the swell in his chest bloom into something so close to fear. And yet, he catches himself leaning into his touch at the last minute, confusion already beginning to cloud his brain. Oikawa freezes before clearing his throat and dropping his hand to Hinata’s knee.

“Iwa-chan has never met anyone quite like you before,” Oikawa tells him. “I doubt he means that in a bad way.”

“I’ve never met anyone like you, Oikawa-san, and I’ve never met anyone like Iwaizumi either,” Hinata says. Something aches, the muted pulse in his throat returned. Hinata doesn't know why it’s there, but the moment to ask doesn't come up as Oikawa speaks again, this time moving to pet Hinata’s scalp again.

“Is that because we are tangible? And not just through a screen or the browser?” Oikawa asks. His voice is quieter than usual, and his eyes are softer than Hinata has seen them before, a gentle kind of powerful Hinata can’t understand.

“No,” Hinata answers. “I don’t think so.”

Silence fills the empty space between them, and a moment too long is spent staring for Hinata to look away now. Oikawa looks reluctant to move, but Hinata lets himself lean forward on a whim, enough so that their noses brush. There is a kind of pressure in the air, the type that sits on your shoulders like three hundred tons of _nothing_ , the kind that presses into you and suffocates your laughing breaths. Oikawa hands are curled around his hips, and Hinata feels a shiver at the touch.

“Am I like any person you’ve ever met?” Hinata asks. His eyes flicker from Oikawa’s lips to his eyes, waiting for a response. Nervousness creeps up his spine, but he keeps still, watching as Oikawa’s eyes glass over for a moment before he speaks.

“No,” he says quietly. “I haven’t met anyone like you.”

Hinata releases the tension wound tight in his shoulders, letting his eyes close shut for a moment as thoughts begin to clear. When he opens them, it’s to see Oikawa quickly look away, as if caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“What?” Hinata asks, cocking his head.

“Nothing,” Oikawa snaps. He winces at his tone, but speaks again. “You blushed, is all.”

—

Iwaizumi is accustom to eating alone. He is not, however, one to make a habit of drinking before 5pm, let alone before 5pm on a weekday. 

Iwaizumi sips the liquor from his glass, wincing at the taste of expensive drinks with too much to them. There's a small meal in front of him, something that’ll substitute for a day’s worth of meals if he doesn't end up leaving his room anytime today. It’s been three days since he’s arrived at Oikawa’s estate and he has yet to have anything made clear.

The papers in front of him are a mess of Oikawa’s handwritten scrawl, concept designs of Hinata, confusing formulas jotted down into margins. Iwaizumi can’t make sense of it, but supposes if he knows more about Hinata himself, judging his intelligence will be easier.

Or so he thought. In reality, the papers leave nothing for speculation, nor do they answer any questions Iwaizumi would’ve had. Iwaizumi groans, rubbing his eyes once more. The files make it seem like Oikawa is already sure of Hinata’s AI, that it’s already fact that he is as alive as any human. 

On the television in front of him is the monitor feed of Hinata, sitting idle in his room, engrossed in a book, blankets swaddled around him. Iwaizumi watches as he tenses, as he smiles and frowns, turning the pages of the book with delicate hands. 

The taste of alcohol burns his throat as he takes another sip. It’s frustrating, trying to judge something so peculiar as Hinata. Iwaizumi swirls his glass around, leaning back so that his back is flush with the pillows on his bed. Hinata doesn’t understand human customs, but that could be lack of socialization. He was curious, for sure, and seemed to express a variety of emotions.

“Then what makes you human?” Iwaizumi mumbles. “What makes you tick?”

—

It’s cold enough that Oikawa’s hands burn. The wind is harsh, biting into his knuckles as he sits out on the back deck, dusk finally beginning to set in. The scent of fall, rotting leaves and the smell of rain, soil, and late blooming plants engulfs his senses. It fills Oikawa with a distant kind of longing as his breath fogs out in front of him.

The Norway estate has been his home for a few years now, but even so, the clutter of pencils and posters he grew up with stay put in his office, as if to only remind him of his roots while he works. Oikawa thinks back to the cell phone he keeps in his bedroom, the link back to the world itself. When was the last time he phoned home?

The fact that it’s a struggle to remember, a haze of _last January_ or _the fall before that_ tells him enough, yields frustration as Oikawa buries his face in his hands. His work; it’s his life, his livelihood, his reason for existing or whatever shit most people believe. Oikawa doesn't usually dwell on why he is here, but lately, the thought has begun to sit on his shoulders whenever he sees a familiar face.

Oikawa laughs, airy and bitter, grips the step he sits on tighter until his knuckles pull white against the bone. The only reason he wants to call home is for advice, for himself. Selfish desires have always ruled him. The idea of artificial life was not innovation for the world, but glory for him, the fame of being the first, the best.

“But that’s changed, hasn’t it?” Oikawa whispers.

And it has. It changed when artificial life meant more than models one through eleven. It changed when the android became Shouyou, became a personality, a person, someone Oikawa watched grow from day one.

Hinata was constant. He has been, for as long as Oikawa has been working on the project. His presence is an ever steady hum, a buzz accompanying his thoughts, always there, always watching. What started as any other invention, as any other creative process with leaps and bounds became something the colour gold and too real to let go.

_Hinata is real,_ Oikawa tells himself. His lips are frozen. He bites them in a vain attempt for warmth.

_But how real?_ Oikawa’s mind shoots back, and Oikawa’s stomach swells in his throat.

The sliding door behind him is what finally causes him to lift his head. Hinata is staring at him, his torso hidden by Oikawa’s sweater, fingers fidgeting with the hem as he looks down at Oikawa.

“I was looking for you,” Hinata says, voice soft, eyes softer. His lip quivers, and he isn’t smiling, expression something akin to fear and longing, something Oikawa doesn't want to think about.

“Not now, Shouyou,” Oikawa snaps, bitter aftertaste and regret rising like bile at his own tone.

Hinata flinches, but doesn't seem to listen, only walking closer so that he can sit beside Oikawa. Oikawa instinctively sighs, gets ready to push the swell in his throat back down to his chest when Hinata leans over, rests his head against Oikawa’s shoulder and shuts his eyes.

“You seem upset,” Hinata explains. “Contact helps produce endorphins.”

Pride slips from his grasp as Oikawa feels his shoulders drop, Hinata’s hair tickling the base of his neck, and despite the comfort he brings, Oikawa cannot help but feel the weight of something else on his mind.

“I’m just stressed out, Shou-chan, it’s nothing,” Oikawa says. He wants him to believe it, wants himself to believe it, wants it to be possible to stamp out his problems like embers left from a cigarette.

Hinata lifts his head and turns so that he can face Oikawa, cocks his head and furrows his brow. “You created a browser, a supercomputer, a company, and me. That’s not nothing, is it?”

Oikawa curses, presses his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose. The weight is growing heavier now, pressing hard against his temples. 

“No, Hinata, you mean a lot, all of those things aren't small, it’s just—” Oikawa pauses to sigh, dropping his hands from his face as he shakes his head. “I just don’t want you to worry.”

Hinata looks taken aback, confusion clouding his features as he stares Oikawa in the eye. Oikawa turns, not wanting to meet his gaze, only for a small hand to touch his shoulder, desperate.

“You don't have to worry about me, because I am yours, right?" Hinata asks. His eyes focus through the ever fading light, head tilted so that he can see Oikawa's expression. "Yours, and yours forever.”

And there’s nothing more Oikawa wants to whisper _yes_ , to let Hinata follow him and hide away at an estate in the woods a continent away, but the world doesn't work in favour of the easy. Oikawa insides are shouting because this is why he worries, the line between adoration and something more is growing thin and he isn’t sure what Hinata means when he says _yours forever_ and he isn’t sure if _Hinata_ understands what that means.

Yet, he believes it, falls for it, looks over to Hinata with a small smile on his face just to watch Hinata’s eyes spark in the dim lighting. Hinata smiles wider, whispers something like _I won’t leave you,_ _ever_ , and Oikawa takes comfort in the fact, even if it scares him.

—

Regret, in many forms, can be compared to waking up with a headache and the taste of liquor still on your tongue, Iwaizumi was sure.

Sure, one or two glasses of whatever hard liquor Oikawa owned may have been fine, but when Iwaizumi opens his eyes and winces immediately at the dimmed lighting of his room, he knows he had one too many. Or five.

Hell, there aren't even any windows in his room.

So, with limbs made of lead and head beating harder than his heart, Iwaizumi pops two aspirin and struggles his way out of bed, into his training clothes, and up to the main patio. 

Luckily, Oikawa is as much as a fitness geek as him, and the patio is home to a small outdoor training area. Iwaizumi’s headache only worsens when he steps outside, but he squints through it, allowing his eyes to adjust to the shifting light before tapping his knuckles.

It’s been awhile since Iwaizumi kick-boxed, but the burn and stretch of muscles used in hardly the same way is refreshing, pulls him from his head and into his body. It’s a lot warmer today, the sun pushing the temperature into the 20’s. The breeze is cool enough that the warmness isn’t overwhelming. Iwaizumi still has to work for his muscles to stay warm.

It isn't long before Iwaizumi begins to sweat, shirt sticking to his skin as he creates a pattern in his hits. _Hook, swing, kick, jab. Hook, swing, kick, jab._ Repetition becomes comfort, the mantra of muscle memory and mindless actions his own way of numbing his mind from whatever thoughts began to swarm. 

Iwaizumi feels himself drift back into his head, and hits the punching bag again, hard enough that it swings. His shirt is sweat soaked, and the annoyance of cotton chafing his skin is enough to convince him to take it off.

Just as Iwaizumi pulls the shirt over top his head, he spots a small flash of ginger from the corner of his eyes. With his shirt still around his arms, he looks up to see Hinata, standing wide eyed at the doorway, bottle of water in hand. Iwaizumi smiles towards him, shrugging the shirt off of his biceps and tossing it onto the ground. Hinata stays frozen, eyes wide, transfixed on Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi waves, and it isn’t until then that Hinata reacts, stumbling forwards.

“Water!” he blurts out, thrusting the bottle in his hands forward. “I saw you, from the windows, of course, and thought—”

“It’s okay, Hinata,” Iwaizumi assures him. “Thank you.”

Hinata continues to talk as Iwaizumi lifts the bottle to his lips, gulping down the water. It dribbles down his chin, and Iwaizumi can’t feel embarrassed due to his thirst, not even realizing how dry his throat was until he tasted water.

“Hydration is needed for humans when they exercise, and you didn’t have…” Hinata’s voice trails off, eyes staying fixed on something. Iwaizumi looks down at him, wiping the water from his mouth in concern.

“Hinata, are you alright?” he asks. He isn’t sure if this is another one of Hinata’s quirks, or if he genuinely was distracted by something, but the sudden pause in speech was alarming.

“No! Yes! I’m okay, I just remembered, I have to find Oikawa,” Hinata stutters. He turns around without a goodbye. Iwaizumi watches him leave, brow furrowed, watching as Hinata zips back inside and down the hall.

Iwaizumi shakes his head, unravels the tape around his knuckles. He finds himself smiling at the idea of Hinata flustered, and he isn’t quite sure why.

—

Hinata fists his hands in his hair, squeezes his eyes tight. He can still feel the lingering heat on his face, the way his chest ached, the sudden sensations running through wires. It was just Iwaizumi, what reason was there for him to react this way? Iwaizumi, smiling, sunlight dancing on his skin, with water slipping down his neck. Just Iwaizumi, talking to him in that warm tone of voice he always used.

_Distraction. Reroute, refocus: Where else does this feeling happen?_

The answer, of course, is when he sees Oikawa; when they talk, when he thinks about him and the way he smiles. When Oikawa slips his big sweaters over Hinata’s shoulders, when he slips their hands together.

Hinata wants to scream. If what he felt when he saw Iwaizumi was the spark of a match, then how he feels around Oikawa is pouring gasoline on a fire, reigning steady embers into something violent, loud, present, yet always burning. 

Hinata lets himself flop down onto his bed, bouncing slightly as the mattress adjusts. Feelings, he decides, are complicated, unusual things. He understood them, knew them, could see millions of people react through a screen in smiles and tears. He smiled too, felt bored, let his own ideas rule logical thought more than often.

Is this an emotion, the weight that settles on his chest? Hinata reaches for his music player lying on the floor, untangles the headphones for lack of something to do. Nocturne op. 9 no.2 fills his ears, and Hinata lets his eyes flutter shut, curls up into the softness of his bed. 

Feeling emotions, he decides, is a lot different than just knowing them. And this emotion, the heart heavy, face heating, bubbling sensation, is warm in a suffocating way, clouding his thoughts when he needs them most. Hinata thinks about Oikawa, thinks about him laughing, thinks about him breathing in the forest air on their walks, feels the feeling intensify. He imagines them holding hands, imagines the feeling of resting his head on Oikawa’s chest. Hinata imagines laughing with Iwaizumi the same way as Oikawa, imagines the three of them listening to Chopin and smiling. 

The tightness in his chest does not fade, and Hinata wonders if he’s the only one who feels this way.

—

Oikawa is reading when Iwaizumi asks the question.

“What was the reason for giving Hinata sexuality? Or gender, for that manner?” Iwaizumi asks. 

Oikawa drops his book, stares at Iwaizumi from across the table. The question came out of seemingly nowhere, but Oikawa isn’t upset. Hinata is his creation, an extension of his work, of himself. Smirking, Oikawa rests his elbows on the table, forcing Iwaizumi to meet his eye.

“What makes you ask, Iwa- _chan_?”

The nickname is enough to make Iwaizumi reach forward to smack Oikawa in the head, but the latter dodges at last second, sticking out his tongue. Iwaizumi grumbles, but replies anyway.

“He’s an AI, there isn’t really a necessity for sexuality and gender, is there?” Iwaizumi asks.

Oikawa purses his lips, shrugging. “I mean, biologically and technically speaking, no, but for my own purposes, programming gender and sexuality is a challenge that needed to be done. Who expected me to create a machine with attraction to human people?”

“People? You mean you programmed him to—”

“I programmed him to like boys, girls, whatever, just like _you_ were programmed to like boys, girls, whatever, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa finishes. He stands, dusting off his jeans and moving to open the fridge. He wasn’t sure why he was so quick to snap, but Iwaizumi’s questions have become tedious in an instant, and Oikawa wants nothing more than to return to his book. “If I weren’t the one who would decide, who would be?”

“Wait, idiot, no one told me to like who I do,” Iwaizumi shoots back.

Oikawa scoffs. “Please, Iwaizumi, it’s not a choice. Either by nature or whatever god you may believe in, you ended up liking who you do, just like, due to me, Hinata likes who he does.”

When Oikawa turns, bottle in hand, Iwaizumi is there, glaring him down. “What, so you’re his god?”

Oikawa shrugs, using the few inches height to loom over Iwaizumi. “You know as well as I do that there isn’t a god. But sure, for your analogy, we can quote and say that I am the god here, the one who created Hinata in science rather than faith.”

“You’re a narcissist,” Iwaizumi growls.

“And a multi-billionaire engineer,” Oikawa spits. “Tell me something I don’t know.” He smiles, wide, dripping false sentiment and sweetness.

Oikawa pivots, popping the cork on the bottle as he walks, only half listening to what Iwaizumi was mumbling about. As he reaches for the wine glasses, he hears Iwaizumi mutter something under his breath.

“I’m sorry? I didn't catch that,” Oikawa says, looking over his shoulder as he pours his wine.

“I _said_ ,” Iwaizumi grits through his teeth, obviously fed up with Oikawa’s childish taunts. “That Hinata was watching me while I was working out. That’s what made me ask in the first place.”

Something drops in the pit of Oikawa’s stomach, makes him turn all the way to face Iwaizumi, looks at the scowl on his face. The ache bubbles in his chest, burns like fumes from gasoline and Oikawa isn’t sure how to handle it other than tipping his glass and drinking it dry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, you can chat abt this with me on my tumblr spacegaykj~


	3. mary and the black and white room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> h e ck m8y im doing nanowrimo and trying not to Scream save me  
> betad again by mooksmookin!

Jealousy tastes like bitterness as it slides down Oikawa’s tongue.

It’s ugly, makes him nauseous, makes him want to crush glass and throw bottles, makes him feel shaky and tired and torn and _confused_.

Oikawa never realized how much he liked Hinata’s presence until it wasn’t constant, never saw how much he relished in the way he would trail after him, smiling, grinning, laughing, until he realizes how it made him feel. Oikawa misses him, despite Hinata only being a few doors away.

He supposes he could call for him, could talk to him, could ask to watch the way his eyes brighten when they speak. But that would be giving up, in Oikawa’s mind. It would be making the first move, would be submitting to the chance of not knowing which way things will turn.

And Oikawa thrives of certainties, off of facts and numbers and logical things with proof. He believes in science, in big bangs and the statistical probability of extraterrestrial life. Facts, solid, with proof.

Fact: Hinata adores him.

Oikawa has known this from day one. Even as he lounges on the sofa in his room, he feels as if there are eyes watching him. He know’s it isn’t true, knows that his bedroom doesn’t have a CCTV feed, but someone, Hinata always knows where he is.Hinata, who follows him with wides eyes, starstruck. Hinata, who listens to his every word, hold his eye contact until the last second.

Hinata, who blushes when Oikawa brushes water from his cheek.

Fact: Oikawa knows Hinata is obsessive, and loves him anyways.

Oikawa knows he isn’t any better than Hinata, knows the lead in his stomach only proves how much he wishes Hinata could love him like any other human. It proves he’s lovesick, jealous, caught in a deadlock.

He _needs_ Iwaizumi here, but he wants Hinata more.

Oikawa’s thoughts are interrupted by a light knocking from the corner of his room. Oikawa sits, moving so that his legs aren't draped over the couch where he sulked, and calls the door open. It hisses as it swings open, revealing Hinata, sweater hanging off of his shoulders, face fallen, eyes big, round and worried.

Oikawa doesn't like the feeling of guilt that settles when he sees Hinata frowning. He swallows it and motions him to come forward.

“You seemed upset,” Hinata says, kicking the door closed. “I saw you. Through the cameras.”

Oikawa shrugs. “You can come sit, you know.”

Hinata smiles softly at being given permission to come closer, drags his toes across Oikawa’s hardwood floor before sitting on the couch beside Oikawa, turning so that they are face to face.

Oikawa reaches forward on impulse, brushes his knuckles against Hinata’s cheek. Hinata grabs Oikawa’s hand with his own, and lowers it to their laps.

“Something is wrong with me, Oikawa,” Hinata says, voice airy with fear.

“What do you mean?” Oikawa asks.

Hinata hesitates, looks away from Oikawa and breaks their gaze. Oikawa grips the pillow instead of Hinata’s hand, bites his lip as he watches Hinata with nervousness.

“I feel like someone is stepping on my chest, Tooru. Constantly, like someone's punching me in the stomach, like they’re lighting me on fire,” Hinata whispers.

Oikawa inhales sharply through his teeth, contains the urge to surge forwards and press kisses to Hinata’s lips. Hinata is tapping his fingers on his leg, still avoiding Oikawa’s eye, instead fixating his gaze on a tear in the seam of Oikawa’s black jeans.

“I feel it when we touch,” Hinata tells him, moving his hand so that it hovers over Oikawa’s wrist. “When we talk, when I think about you… this feeling is there.”

Oikawa chokes on his spit, feels his mind implode with hopeful elation. He sits up straighter, leaning forwards towards Hinata, his name already leaving his lips.

_“Shouyou—”_

“I feel it right now,” Hinata tells him, finally lifts his head and meets Oikawa’s gaze.

Oikawa doesn’t speak, instead slips his shaking fingertips under Hinata’s chin, pulling him close enough that their foreheads almost touch. They practically sit atop each other, the couch small enough that Oikawa has to loom over Hinata to fit. Hinata doesn’t care, allows Oikawa to guide his chin upwards, never breaking their gaze. There is a kind of delicacy of the situation, as if Oikawa handles Hinata like china, his touch barely there, tentative, hesitant.

“Tooru, what is this feeling inside of me?” Hinata asks. Oikawa can hear the soft whir of his eyes focusing on his own, watches as Hinata’s bottom lip quivers. Oikawa reaches a hand behind Hinata’s back, lifts the other to brush across his lip. Neither speak, instead letting the silence sit between them,

“I am in love with you,” Oikawa says.

Hinata’s eyes widen, lips rounding into an _o_. Oikawa feels his heart clench as Hinata moves his hands to rest against his chest, is aware of how hard his heart is beating at the contact. Hinata leans forward still, places his head against Oikawa’s shoulder, nose pressing into his neck.

“Is that what this feeling is?” Hinata whispers.

Oikawa doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't say anything at all, opting instead to run a hand down Hinata’s mechanical spine and letting it rest on the small of his back. Hinata’s shoulders relax at the touch. He allows his body to press closer to Oikawa’s, lets OIkawa carry his weight as his embrace closes around his slender frame.

It’s an ebbing wave that finally sweeps you away; the first breath of air after snow; jumping into the water without testing it first. A shock to the system, expected, welcomed, the kind of thing one yearns for. And Oikawa can't help but smile down at Hinata, can't help but let his shoulders slip into silent laughter at the surreality of the situation. Hinata looks up at him, smile coy, eyes big and wide and wonderful. In that moment, Hinata is childhood on acid, multiplied, saturated, the best parts ever present, and Oikawa relishes in the sound and the feeling of Hinata’s skin against his.

It aches, but not in the way it had before. It aches like muscles overused, the soreness of laughing until your ribs slip or really good sex that aches for days to come. Oikawa embraces it, lets it wash over him like Hinata’s radiance and smile.

The worry is suppressed, buried in the pit of his stomach. He doesn’t think about it, doesn't think about it, doesn’t think about it.

—

It’s raining too hard for Iwaizumi to justify working out on the patio again.

The rain comes down in buckets, slipping off the leaves and soaking the forest floor. Judging by the steady stream down the windows, it had rained throughout the night, and wasn’t likely to let up throughout the day. It’s calming, however, and Iwaizumi moves to the main foyer living room to work, listens to the sound of the rain until he is lulled into the steady pace of work and raindrops.

It’s late evening by the time he’s finished, the company work and Hinata’s AI notes updated. Iwaizumi stretches out his shoulders, rolling away the knot from his neck. The clock on the wall reads 6:55, leaving just enough time to wash up before dinner.

Iwaizumi has yet to have more than three formal meals with Oikawa, their work and lax sleep schedules interrupting any sit-down dinners they could’ve had. Earlier in the morning, however, Oikawa had offered for them to eat together that night. The prospect of an expensive meal, and even more expensive wine, sounded fine enough after a day’s work at first. Iwaizumi knows Oikawa prefers to be alone, knows he uses dinners as an excuse to weave people the way he needs them, but by the time the suspicions have entered his head, Iwaizumi had finished cleaning up, already swayed by a warm meal.

Iwaizumi walks into the dinner room, cautious, expecting Oikawa to be late. Dusk illuminates the room enough that the lights have only just begun to flick on. A blue light silhouettes the table where someone sits. Confused, Iwaizumi steps closer, spotting Oikawa looking out the window, ignoring his entrance. Faintly, he can hear whirring.

The confusion doesn't stop as he spots Hinata walk in from the kitchen, balancing two plates in his hands. Iwaizumi furrows his brow at the sight of Hinata placing dinner plates onto the table where Oikawa sits, watches as Hinata picks up a bottle of red wine and unscrews the cap, pouring it slowly into Oikawa’s raised glass. As he finishes, Oikawa touches his wrist, barely skirting his fingertips against his body, and leans forward to say something to him in a low voice. Hinata looks down when Oikawa finishes speaking, smiles small to himself, almost bashful, and Oikawa, almost smug. Iwaizumi looks at the way Hinata’s eyes are, expecting, starstruck, adoring.

“You get him to serve you?” Iwaizumi asks, incredulous. Oikawa looks over his shoulder at him, feigning surprise to his appearance. He rolls his eyes, but it's Hinata who replies, cocking his head to the side, eyes unwavering, lips parted.

“He created me,” Hinata says. “Is this not the least I can do?”

Something about Hinata’s gaze, the way he does not challenge Iwaizumi and yet forces him to cower, sends shivers through Iwaizumi’s spine, raises the hair on his neck. Hinata’s voice is chilling, terrifying, and yet Oikawa is unfazed, almost enamoured with the way he stares Iwaizumi down.

Iwaizumi does not know the word for how he feels when he sits down, as he sips his wine and watches the way Oikawa refuses to tear his eyes from Hinata the entire meal.

 _Terrifying_ , he thinks. It rests at the back of his mind, refuses to be spoken.

—

Iwaizumi is odd, Hinata realizes.

Not just odd in the sense that his mouth seems curved into an ever existing scowl, but odd in the sense that Hinata cannot pinpoint the way he thinks. Hinata furrows his brow, something he noticed Iwaizumi liked to do. It frustrates him, to say the least.

He manages to ask Oikawa about it, but Oikawa’s answers are always flaked, brushed off, annoyed, as if the very topic of Iwaizumi makes him irked to the point of eye rolls and a scrunched nose.

“Do you like Iwaizumi?” Hinata asks Oikawa.

Oikawa shrugs. “We’ve been friends for a long time, but Iwa-chan can be a bit of a brute.”

Hinata replies that Iwaizumi was nice enough, but Oikawa scoffs, turns around and tells him that he meant that Iwaizumi was abrasive. Hinata is still confused, but the thought of Iwaizumi is pushed down when Oikawa wraps him up into a hug, lifts him up and spins him around. Surprises washes away all other thoughts but Oikawa, his smile, his hands, and Iwaizumi is forgotten until the day after.

It is then that Hinata realizes that asking Oikawa about Iwaizumi proves a dead end. With that, a new idea is made, one that means creeping down the halls, tapping the walls and hoping to spot Iwaizumi alone.

Iwaizumi appears midmorning, hair still wet, and Hinata feels the ache in his chest again. He ignores it, watches as Iwaizumi jumps slightly when he spots him.

“Christ, you scared me,” Iwaizumi says, rubbing his eyes. His voice his rough, gravelly, like sandpaper. Hinata likes it, feels warm at the sound.

“I was looking for you,” Hinata says simply. He’s wearing Oikawa’s sweater, a different one, light blue with a logo for some technology agency across the back. The sleeves still fall past his fingertips, allowing him to play with the excess fabric, twisting it as he waits for Iwaizumi’s response.

“Is there a reason you were looking for me?” he asks. He seems tired, massaging his eyes with the heels of his hands, blinking at the brightness of the hallway lights. Hinata suddenly feels guilt, wondering if he should've waited.

“Do you need more rest? Isn’t eight hours what human are supposed to be getting?” Hinata worries.

Iwaizumi shakes his head. “No, I just need some coffee. C’mon Hinata, we can talk in the kitchen.”

Hinata nods, following Iwaizumi through the maze of halls upstairs to the kitchen. Iwaizumi begins to fiddle with the coffee pot, and Hinata jumps onto the island counter, bringing his legs up to cross them and scoot towards the edge. Iwaizumi hardly raises a brow at his actions, simply turns to lean against the opposite counter and faces him, coffee in hand.

“Why are you always asking _me_ the questions?” Hinata asks.

Iwaizumi’s face drops. “What do you mean?”

“I showed you what I like and told you about me. Why don’t _you_?” Hinata presses.

Iwaizumi pauses, thinking for a moment. His eye contact breaks with Hinata when he speaks again.

“To be honest, I’m not a fan of mornings,” he says.

Hinata realizes it’s meant to be a joke and laughs, biting his tongue between his teeth. Iwaizumi manages to crack a small smile, running a hand through his damp hair as he does so. Hinata likes it, seeing people who usually care for their looks candid. It’s interesting.

“Do you like coffee?” Hinata asks.

“Only with cream and sugar. It’s too bitter otherwise,” Iwaizumi replies. He pauses, taking a moment to think again. “Have you ever tasted something?”

Hinata nods. “I have taste receptors on my tongue, but only for the purpose of the experience. I can’t digest food or drink.”

“That’s odd,” Iwaizumi comments. He looks down at his mug of coffee before extending it out towards Hinata. “Do you want to taste it?”

Hinata is taken aback by the question, eyes wide, head cocked. Iwaizumi brings it a little closer, as if to assure him it’s okay. Hinata reaches forward tentatively, taking the mug from Iwaizumi and bringing it to his lips. It smells nice, and the heat seeps into him and makes him shudder. Hinata dips his tongue into the liquid, wincing slightly at the heat. It tastes sharp, not as sweet as he had hoped, and he hands it back to a smiling Iwaizumi with a look of disgust on his face.

“ _Eurgh_ ,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “I learned you like coffee, but I don't know _how_.”

Iwaizumi laughs, deep and as warm as the mug Hinata had just held. The ache makes itself present again, and Hinata wonders if it’s the same feeling.

—

“Shou-chan,” Oikawa says, not bothering to turn around from his bedroom desk. “You’ve been talking to Iwaizumi an awful lot lately.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Hinata freeze. Guilt singes through his stomach, but the jealousy burns hotter, consuming any other though as he awaits Hinata’s reply.

“I was just curious,” Hinata says. “He doesn't talk about himself much.”

Oikawa sighs, bites back the comment he was about to spit. _Machines can only express so much,_ he thinks, bitter in the thought of Hinata not understanding that Oikawa loves him the way he does. Oikawa stands from his desk, removes his glasses to rub his ends with the heels of his hands.

The rational part of him wants to say that Hinata’s fascination with Iwaizumi has nothing to do with him, only his own curiosity, but selfish desires cling to Oikawa’s mind at the prospect of Hinata not caring for him in _that_ way.

Oikawa never doubted his work until he fell in love with it, never assumed he wouldn't be able to tell if the human machine could love until he was the object of its affections. How could he expect Hinata to understand love if he was all he had known? How could he ask Hinata to love him, if he could be curious about something else? How could he, how could he, how could he—

Oikawa’s thoughts are cut off by Hinata wrapping his arms around his waist, pressing his head into his shoulder. Oikawa turns to face him, to see Hinata’s wide eyes looking up at him with a kind of enchantment he cannot place. Hinata reaches upwards, brushes his fingertip across Oikawa’s cheek and sends a shiver down his spine.

“The way I feel about Iwaizumi is different then you, but I still care, I think,” Hinata says, eyes flickering from Oikawa eyes to his lips. “I’m learning, I promise, and the ache is still there.”

“The ache?” Oikawa repeats, softly, brushing his hand down Hinata’s back.

Hinata nods, moving to rest his head against Oikawa’s collarbone. “Love leaves a bruising feeling in its wake. It doesn't hurt anymore, not when I’m with you.”

Oikawa can’t help but let the tension drop from his shoulders at Hinata’s words, can’t help but pull him closer into his embrace. Hinata’s nose tickles his neck and sends a shiver down his spine, makes him smile softly.

“Sleep here with me,” Oikawa says. “You won’t need to charge until tomorrow night, anyway.”

Hinata pulls away, eyes bright with excitement and nods, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear.

“Can I have another sweater?” he asks, voice small, tapping his feet in anticipation of Oikawa’s answer.

Oikawa smiles. “You like wearing them, don’t you?”

“They smell like you,” Hinata replies, blunt and loud, eyes holding Oikawa’s as he takes a step closer. Oikawa feels his heart clench, feels the need to reach forward to Hinata, but bites it back, watches the way Hinata smiles coyly.

The sweater Oikawa grabs is dusty pink, soft to the touch, with blue stripes. It’s a bit ugly, but Hinata doesn't care, pulls it over top of his head and lets it engulf him. He flops onto Oikawa’s bed, grinning with enough glee to lit up the night sky. Beautiful, beautiful, Oikawa thinks, thinking about pressing kisses onto Hinata’s cheeks, the bridge of his nose, his neck.

“I need to change out of my day clothes,” Oikawa tells Hinata. “I can change in the bathroom—”

“You don’t need to,” Hinata interrupts, cocking his head to the side. “I don’t mind.”

Oikawa raises a brow, feels heat rise to tint his cheeks pink at Hinata’s bluntness. He smirks, and Hinata mirrors him, not looking away. Oikawa breaks eye contact to pull his shirt over his head and toss it onto the floor, constantly aware of Hinata's eyes burning holes into him as he changed into his sleepwear.

“You’re pretty,” Hinata whispers. Oikawa barely hears it, but smiles to himself as he tugs a worn shirt over his head.

When he finishes, he looks back to Hinata and flashes a smile, sticking out his tongue as he moves to sit onto the bed next to him. Hinata grips the cover and pulls it over their legs, turning on his side so that they face each other, noses almost touching. The brown hues in Hinata’s eyes are warm, inviting, bring out the softness in his face. Oikawa reaches his hand forward and brushes his fingers against Hinata’s cheek, watching the way he reacts to the touch.

“You’re beautiful, Shouyou,” Oikawa says, rubbing circles on Hinata’s cheek with his thumb. He can feel his heart thump inside of his chest, beating louder and louder with every passing second.

“Can I kiss you?” Oikawa asks, softly, so quiet that he doesn't realize he has said it until Hinata is nodding, leaning forwards every so slightly to bridge the gap between them.

The kiss is cold. Hinata tastes faintly like a doctor’s office, of metal and something mint, but Oikawa doesn't mind, pulls him closer, running a hand through his ginger hair. Hinata smiles into the kiss, and their teeth bump as Oikawa rolls on top of Hinata, connecting their lips again as Hinata reaches upwards, reaching his arms around Oikawa’s neck.

It’s slow, like watching the sunrise or water boil, warm in ways that Oikawa can’t describe. Hinata’s finger tips dance around his shoulders, sliding up his neck and to his hair. He threads his fingers through the ashy brown locks, and Oikawa hums into his mouth. He draws circles with the pad of his thumb on Hinata’s hip, smiling slightly when Hinata gasps and presses closer.

Oikawa pulls away, pressing his forehead onto Hinata’s. Hinata’s smile blinds him, bright in all softness, his eyes still half lidded.

“It feels nice,” Hinata muses, running his hand through Oikawa’s hair again.

Oikawa can’t contain the smile that splits across his face as he ducks down to place one last kiss to Hinata’s lips, slow and languid, but purposeful. He rolls off of Hinata, fixing the duvet around them before shouting _lights_ and encompassing the room in darkness.

“C’mere,” Oikawa says, opening his arms.

Hinata scoots closer, and Oikawa wraps his arms around his shoulders, guiding Hinata’s head to rest on his chest. Hinata sighs, content, as he wriggles closer into the touch, an action so human Oikawa would choke if he were thinking straight. But now, he simply holds Hinata tighter, closes his eyes and lets the weight of another body lull him into rest.

He falls asleep with Hinata in his arms and on his mind, creeping into his dreams once more.

—

The more time Iwaizumi spends with Hinata, the more peculiar he finds him, and the more his task of validating his intelligence grows increasingly confusing, increasingly challenging.

He could look at testing Hinata’s AI in multiple ways. The Turing Test, speaking to a computer and thinking it is human, Hinata passed from the beginning. Flawless speech patterns, memory retention, small phrases and idioms picked up from him or Oikawa. Non-verbal body messages, facial expressions, curiosity— Hinata is just as human as anyone else upon first glance.

Iwaizumi knew it couldn’t be that simple. Oikawa, naturally, must’ve run thousands of tests on Hinata’s AI; the Turing Test was probably one of them. In the back of his mind, Iwaizumi is aware that he more than likely serves as a test for Hinata in some way, that Iwaizumi was invited here to test Hinata subconsciously. That fact could be more confusing than his last in the first place. Why would Oikawa bring _him_ to his research facility? Why would he throw an uncontrollable player into the mix?

Iwaizumi glances over his notes again, gnawing at the inside of his cheek. Something makes him feel guilty about thinking about Hinata in that way, about judging if he is really a person or not. Hinata is amber in every aspect: warm, soft to the touch, fiery and passionate and curious like a moth drawn to the ever burning flame. Iwaizumi thinks about the way he smiles, about the childish innocence and the infectious glee spread from his laugh, thinks _how more human could he be?_

Feverish knocking snaps Iwaizumi’s head towards the door of his bedroom. Iwaizumi sighs, standing to open the door, only to watch as it opens itself. Oikawa grins on the other side, holding two bottles in one hand, the other waving.

“How did you get in?” Iwaizumi asks, sitting back down.

Oikawa tosses Iwaizumi a bottle, not watching to see whether or not he catches it. He does, popping the cap without question. “I can unlock every door, naturally, it’s my house,” Oikawa says. “But that isn’t important.”

“What is, then?” Iwaizumi presses, taking a sip. The drink is stronger than he expected, provides a shock to his system and a shiver down his spine as Oikawa paces around his room.

“Your analysis of Hinata’s AI,” Oikawa answers. “What have you found so far?”

Iwaizumi sighs, rubbing his eyes once more before placing down his bottle and trading it for a notepad. He flips through, finding the bookmarked page and reading through it.

“By most tests, Hinata’s AI would pass in flying colours. Amendment: By all but one test that I’ve so far looked at,” Iwaizumi says.

“And what test is that?” Oikawa shoots back, almost instantaneously. He is lazily drinking, sitting on the arm of the sofa, eyes glued to Iwaizumi as he speaks.

“The Seven Characteristics of Life states that, in order to be considered living, things must be made of cells, be composed of multiple systems, consume energy, respond to their environment, grow, reproduce, and adapt,” Iwaizumi says. “Hinata uses energy, has different parts that function systematically, responds and adapts to the things around him, but isn’t comprised of cells and doesn’t have the ability to reproduce. Theoretically, I guess he could grow, but—”

Oikawa lets out a whine, throwing back his head. “Iwaizumi, you are so _boring_ , you know that ?” he says. “So _dreary_ , with your dewey decimal approach to everything—”

“Excuse me?” Iwaizumi says.

“Oh, _please_ ,” Oikawa spits. “Don’t act like you don’t know you sound like a second year science textbook. You couldn’t be less original if you tried, and quite honestly, it’s making me want to implode.”

Iwaizumi controls his temper, despite his desperate want to smack Oikawa in his pretty-boy face. He sits up, looking Oikawa dead in the eye with a scowl on his face.

“My task is to analyze Hinata’s AI, and that’s what I’m doing,” Iwaizumi grits.

“God, has office life _really_ sucked the life out of you? Remind me to schedule you a vacation when you get back,” Oikawa mutters.

Iwaizumi doesn’t laugh at the joke, but Oikawa doesn't seem to care. He drops his bottle down beside Iwaizumi’s knee and moves to stand in front of him.

“Let’s think about it another way,” Oikawa continues. “Have you ever heard of Mary In The Black And White Room?”

“The knowledge experiment?” Iwaizumi asks.

“Yes, now can you tell me what that is?” Oikawa answers, voice sickly sweet, condescending in the way Iwaizumi hates the most.

“Mary is a scientist who knows everything there is to know about colour, but she lives in a black and white room. She has never seen colour, but knows the science of what we’d call blue,” Iwaizumi says.

“Perfect, continue,” Oikawa says.

“One day, Mary is let out of her black and white room, and for the first time, sees colour with her own eyes. Sees red leaves, sees blue rivers, pink roses and yellow boots.” Iwaizumi pauses, just for a moment, remembers the way Hinata’s eyes look when they fill with wonder. “And only then, does she truly know colour.”

Something heavy roots itself to Iwaizumi’s lungs, sinks into his flesh like the realization of Oikawa’s words. Iwaizumi leans forward into his hands, mind aggravated with thoughts of Hinata and the colour golden.

“Now replace Mary with Hinata. Where in the narrative would you say we are?” Oikawa asks, voice low, bending over so that they are eye to eye. Iwaizumi challenges his gaze for a moment, but tears away, knowing that Oikawa’s face with be a smug smirk when he looks back.

Oikawa leans away, snatches his drink from the table and presses it to his lips as he meanders towards the open door. Iwaizumi wants to hate his best friend, he really does. For some reason, the image of Hinata smiling, pure and bright, keeps him from doing so.

A single question nags at the back of his mind, and before Oikawa slips into the hall, Iwaizumi coughs, forcing Oikawa to pause.

“Why don’t you answer the question yourself?” Iwaizumi asks.

Oikawa laughs, looks over his shoulder with a lazy smile. “What makes you think I’m not trying?”

—

Iwaizumi slips his windbreaker over his shirt, slips his headphones into his ears, and rubs the sleep from his eyes. Oikawa’s words bogged his mind with warped delusions, filling it with the stomach churning feeling of anxiety. Something about his bedroom, the living room, the entire building, suffocates him, as if the entire room turned black and white. So Iwaizumi laces up his shoes, pulls on a pair of soft jogging pants, and heads out towards the trails that wind through the forest.

On his way to the front door, Iwaizumi grabs a water bottle off of the shelf, fills it to the brim, and screws on the cap. It’s made of glass, making it heavier than he would’ve liked, but Iwaizumi supposes it will do. As he moves to put it into his bag, he hears a familiar whir, soft and distant. Iwaizumi feels his heart soften, knowing who will face him when he turns.

“Iwaizumi,” Hinata says. “Where are you going?”

“Just for a hike,” Iwaizumi responds. An idea comes to mind. Iwaizumi doesn't consider the consequences before he speaks.

“Do you want to come with me?” Iwaizumi asks, swallows the knot that sits in the back of his throat.

Hinata nods, eyes wide, smile creeping onto his face. “Just let me get my shoes!” he exclaims.

Ten minutes later, Hinata follows Iwaizumi out of the building and into the forest, thick leaves shrouding the sky from their eyes. Hinata’s shoulders drop as they continue down the paths, his smile grows with each shrub they pass. At first, Iwaizumi keeps pace, allowing Hinata to trail behind, but with time, he finds himself stopping with Hinata. He watches as he plucks a wild rose from the bush, nimbly avoiding the thorns as if he’s done it a thousand times.

The rose is a dusty pink colour, fading to yellow at the end of the petals. Hinata holds it with gentleness, caressing the flower with delicate care. Iwaizumi feels his blood move through his veins as he watches as Hinata extends the flower out to him.

“For you,” he says, cheeks reddening as he stares Iwaizumi in the eye.

Iwaizumi chokes on his spit at Hinata’s comment, feels his face heat up to unimaginable temperatures. Hinata smiles at his reddening face and wraps his small hand around his forearm, pulling it closer to him. WIth nimble fingers, he tangles the flower’s stem around Iwaizumi’s wrist. It strains to stay tied, but Iwaizumi is careful as he brings it closer to his eyes, makes sure not to let the flower drop. The warm pink compliments his tanned skin and brings out its warm undertones, causes Iwaizumi’s shoulders to soften at the sight of something so delicate.

 _Thank you,_ Iwaizumi whispers.

 _No problem,_ Hinata replies. He is smiling, bashful, shy as he drops his hands to his thighs and plays with the hem of his sweater.

The forest floor is soft and shifts under their feet as they continue down the paths, stopping spontaneously when Hinata spots something he likes; a shiny rock, a vine, flowers, a leaf that is only half turned.

Iwaizumi knows the names of all the plants them come across, says _daucus carota_ and points out the idiosyncrasies in the patterns of the buds. Hinata is enamoured, listens to Iwaizumi’s voice as if it gospel, changes his focus from the flowers to Iwaizumi’s hands, then to his face, to the uncharacteristic softness of his eyes and lips as he speaks. Hinata decides that he is beautiful, decides that he is as pretty as the stones he finds.

“What is this one called?” Hinata asks, plucks the periwinkle blossom from its shrub, holds it up to Iwaizumi in curiosity.

“Amaryllis,” Iwaizumi replies. He thumbs one of the leaves, watches as the pressure makes it darken to lavender. Hinata spins the flower in his palm, grin spreading wider and wider with every passing moment.

“I’m giving this to Oikawa,” Hinata announces. “It reminds me of him.”

Iwaizumi lets a quiet laugh escape his lips.

_Amaryllis: poetry, pride, splendid beauty._

Even androids know a flower of the same leaf.

As they walk, realization creeps up upon Iwaizumi again. It’s strange, so strange, to catch himself thinking of Hinata as a person and not a program. It’s even stranger when he realizes he doesn't know which is correct.

The loop soon comes to an end, and Hinata and Iwaizumi find themselves facing Oikawa’s home and research facility once more. The sun is setting, sky red and pink and orange, swirling together and silhouetting the forest’s trees. Hinata presses his hand to the console, and the door hisses open. The glass staircase is even brighter with the sunset, casting an amber glow down the steps as Hinata leads the way down the stairs and through the living room.

They walk down the hallway, idle chatter fading into comfortable silence, the back of Hinata’s hand brushing against Iwaizumi’s as they come upon the door to Iwaizumi’s room. Iwaizumi turns, leaning against the glass, averting his eyes from Hinata’s gaze. Hinata seems hesitant, hands twisting behind his back, ears tinted red. It makes Iwaizumi smile, makes him want to brush the stray strand of hair behind Hinata’s ear.

“Iwaizumi,” Hinata says, looking towards his feet. He is blushing more, rose tinted cheeks and small smiles. “Can I stay the night with you?”

Iwaizumi chokes slightly in surprise, swallows his spit and shock and prays he doesn't look like a fish out of water.

“Don’t you need to charge?” Iwaizumi coughs out, prays his face isn't as red as it feels.

Hinata shakes his head. “I will in the morning. Just let me stay with you.”

Iwaizumi hesitates only a second before nodding, pressing his hand to the console and opening the door. His room is disorderly, papers haphazardly strewn across any surface, empty bottles in a line against the wall. Hinata doesn't seem to mind the mess; he runs his hands across the wall as he makes his way to the bed. He falls face first onto the covers, pulls them closer to his chest and turns so that they twist around his whole body. Iwaizumi can’t help the smile that cracks at the sight of him, and Hinata doesn't seem to either, grin spreading wide across his cheeks.

“I need to shower,” Iwaizumi tells Hinata. “I won’t be more than fifteen minutes.”

Hinata nods, and Iwaizumi smiles back, slips into the adjoined washroom and shuts the door.

He sighs at the comfort of being alone, drops his shoulders and feels the ache that broils in his stomach. Hinata is a beautiful creature, something strange and lovely wrapped into one. An enigma, currently lying in his bed.

Iwaizumi strips down to his skin, looks at his reflection in the mirror. His under eyes are bruised and dark from estranged sleep, hair sticking up in seventeen different places like it usually is. Iwaizumi rubs his hands over his cheeks, rolls back his shoulders and listens to the way the joints crack.

When he steps into the shower, he thinks about Oikawa, thinks about the pure adoration that swirls in Hinata’s eyes when he looks at him, thinks about the way Oikawa softens to a pulp when he hears his name. Iwaizumi thinks, _that is not nothing_ , lets the water run scalding against his back as he grips onto the side of the shower.

Oikawa and Hinata yearn for each other like the sun shines for the moon, desperate, wonder filled. It’s clear it see, clear as glass and diamonds and sparkling pools of water, that Oikawa is in love with Hinata, that Hinata thinks of Oikawa as something much more than a friend, an _object_ that had been made of metal and code.

So then why does Hinata follow him, spend a night with him, blush when their hands meet? Why does Iwaizumi allow himself to watch him, watch the way he laughs, the way he traces his hands over objects he doesn't know, the blissful look on his face when he listens to music? Why does Iwaizumi adore Hinata in the same way the android adores Oikawa, under a guise of analysis?

The water doesn’t run cold like it would at home, but Iwaizumi shuts it off anyways, lets the water bead against his skin. The shower didn't help to clear his mind from thoughts he’d rather not have, inconvenient truths about feelings he sometimes wished he didn't have.

Hinata is waiting in the bed when Iwaizumi walks back into the room, flipping through the worn pages of a novel Iwaizumi left on his bedside. When the door behind him hisses shut, Hinata looks up, eyes wide, smile wider. Iwaizumi smiles back, leans over to continue toweling off his hair so not to get his shirt wet.

He’s even more tired now, eyes drooping now that his blood runs warm, knots released from his shoulders. Hinata waits patiently as Iwaizumi hands his towel back up, places the novel back onto the nightstand and fixes the covers so that Iwaizumi can climb into bed easily.

And Iwaizumi does; he fixes the covers around his chest and fluffs the pillow behind his head. Hinata rolls over to face him, traces his fingers over Iwaizumi’s collarbone.

“You know,” Iwaizumi says, propping his head up with his fist. “You don’t need to stay all night. It’s going to be boring for you once I fall asleep”

Hinata shrugs the best he can laying down, continues dragging his hand over Iwaizumi’s chest. “I’ll read some more, watch you. At least we’ll be together.”

Iwaizumi nods, lets his eyes flutter closed. He doesn't want to fall asleep, not with Hinata lying beside him, idly ghosting his palms across his skin, probably smiling, ethereal, beautiful. But Iwaizumi can’t fight the heavy feeling of exhaustion, can’t help but succumb to sleep. As Iwaizumi lets himself slip farther into his dreams, he hears Hinata speak one last time.

“I like you, Hajime,” Hinata whispers. “I like you a lot.”

Iwaizumi falls asleep before he can figure if he dreamt the words or not.


	4. sensory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please, as a christmas gift to me, leave a comment on this fic. i beg you  
> cries i cannot believe this is finished its been so fun but HELL to write this. thank u 2my amazing beta mooksmookin who puts up with Me And My Grammar, this fic would b trash w/o you~

The bud of amaryllis sits in a glass of water beside Oikawa’s desk. Its periwinkle colour compliments the sleek interior of the lab, brightens the mechanics and makes them seem lifelike, soft. It smells like sweetness and every shade of blue, twists the knife that is lodged into Oikawa’s chest.

He knows the meaning of the flower that sits on his desk: pride, beauty.

Oikawa remembers what he saw on his screen the day before— Hinata resting his head on Iwaizumi’s arm, watching him sleep.

Oikawa can’t focus on the report he is supposed to be writing, can’t focus on the formulas and things in front of him. His leg bounces, fingers twitch forward, mind cloudy and hazed with the picture of Hinata staring at Iwaizumi with the same look of curiosity he uses for plants and stones.

Oikawa loves Hinata, adores the way he smiles and looks and sits on counters, loves the way he drags his toes, widens his eyes and screams when startled. Adoration, adoration, adoration, obsession with the android who loves him as much as he does him.

And yet, Hinata is infatuated with Iwaizumi, lets his curiosity guide him towards following him. It hurts. Oikawa feels it— in his chest, his stomach, his mind. The knot that swells in his throat. 

Oikawa knows love can exist between more than two people, knows what Hinata feels could be valid, but doubt settles on his shoulders before he can push it away. The question of whether Hinata can love one person still hangs over Oikawa’s head, and the idea of something more, of Hinata caring for Iwaizumi as much as him—

Oikawa doesn't know if its possible.

The AI log on his computer stares at him dauntingly, as if goading him to open it once more. Oikawa bites the inside of his cheek, slides his clammy hands over his face. There isn’t any point into opening it, he knows, and reliving the accounts inside the log would simply be picking at an old wound.

He lets his hand hover over the mouse, bites down on his lip hard enough he winces, and opens the file.

Oikawa sifts through the oldest notes, beginning sketches and original theory. The log is more than the five years spent developing the physical AI, dating back to almost the same time Oikawa started his company. The original notes are boring, not what he was looking for, and in no time, Oikawa sifts deeper into the file to a date five years and thirty-seven days old.

He’s greeted with a visual of an android, a frailer face with different features. No wild red hair, but the same nose, eyes too wide set, but still a warm chocolatey brown colour.

Hinata Shouyou, Version One.

The chat log is brief, one sided, tears Oikawa apart to remember the way Hinata would not even look at him. He thinks, not real, not real, switches files.

Version two comes almost a year later, and the notes are much more positive. Margins are filled with can follow conversation styles, short term memory on par with predictions. The bot has red hair now, and a video file of it smiling makes bile rise in Oikawa’s throat.

_The AI can have complex conversations, but has trouble expressing them in the body. Long term memory still proves to be an issue, and Ver. 2 cannot remember any event that has taken place in over forty-two (42) hours._

Oikawa remembers, though, remembers introducing himself one hundred and fifty five times to Hinata, remembers hearing him talk about the same song over, and over, hear him ask the same questions.

Oikawa skips to the next version, only six months later. Version three is much more lifelike, but from the videos in the file, it cannot move nearly as smoothly and its reactions are delayed.

He can remember the first time Hinata could remember who he was, reads over the note that says: _He remembers._

Ver. 3 is the worst to sift through, to read through, to watch the videos of the android smiling. Oikawa almost closes the file, almost throws his fist through the screen, but reads the note anyways.

_Hinata Shouyou is capable of a wide variety of emotions, and with every day becomes more and more in tune with his body. Memory retention is much better— remember to save the code and use later._

_The physical body is working in accordance to his wishes as well. Taste and smell were difficult, but my original plan of creating a machine with the same anatomy of a human has been fulfilled. Although Hinata does not have a heart, stomach, etc, he has a brain, and different mechanical systems that will replace organs._

_Physical trials start tomorrow. I’ve been critical of his physical form, as I think it will help deliver a much more responsive AI. I’m hoping that the sensors are all operational. I know I will receive criticism for what I can only call thoroughness, but honestly, I can’t find it in me to care. Hinata should be able to truly be alive, and if that means smelling flowers and experiencing pleasure like anyone else, so be it._

Oikawa wishes he had a drink as he clicks next and opens the file after.

_Sensory Trials, one through five._

_One: Hinata is able to recognize pain to any of his limbs. Currently, he doesn’t seem to have a grasp of fear or danger, although this may be due to his trust in me. He has expressed he understands what I am doing, and that he knows the pain “isn’t real”. This is troubling,_

_Two: Hinata’s five senses have reached top standard. Colour identification, sound recognition, and touch have all been significantly improved since the last model. The addition of taste was a challenge, but worked in the end. Hinata has not made any more comments on how “real” anything is._

_Three: Hinata’s physical and sensory response to emotions is troubling. In the program, fear is supposed to evoke certain responses, but he doesn't seem to be frightened of me at all. I don’t like the idea of having to hurt him, but if it will allow me to test whether or not his AI is working properly, then it must be done._

_Four: Hinata can distinguish what he calls good and bad pain. Good pain is not pain, but things like tickling, soft carpets, etc— responses or feelings that cause a certain kind of pleasure to him. Bad pain can be anything from a scratch to breaking the skeletal structure in his hand. I make a point to ask Hinata before doing any pain test, even if they are small (poking his elbow vs snapping a skeletal frame). Hinata describes both as pain, just intensified or subdued. I’m not sure his pain is differentiated enough. Rewrite: I don’t know yet if Hinata is receiving pain properly. I snapped at him in stress, and he revealed that he did, after all, feel some kind of emotional physical response._

_After that incident, Hinata’s fear responses have greatly improved. He shows intimidation at anything I do now, which, to be fair, any normal person would. Out of curiosity, I removed both of his arms through force (though, I kept them intact), and tried to keep him pinned onto the floor. By wrapping my hands around his throat and threatening to break him, I was able to cause Hinata to shake, both in his body and voice. Likewise, his reflexes grew sharper at the addition of flight or fight. All trust he previously had in me is gone after this experiment, and it’s clear now that he fears me. Despite this, he still has some kind of obsession with talking to me, being with me, even though he flinches when I look at him a certain way._

_I think there’s something wrong in his code. Hinata has been acting oddly in certain situations, juxtaposing what he would do in others. Yesterday, he tried to hug me. I asked him why he would try to do that even after the events before. Only after I brought it up did Hinata scurry away and jump at any movement I make. Obviously he can remember when I threatened to break him, but there was nothing in that moment making him run from me like he should’ve. This is extremely troubling._

Oikawa’s breath shakes as he exhales. His own words send chills down his spine. Too cold. Too analytical.

The next log in the physical trials is months afterwards, and is attached to a timeline of Hinata’s physical body. 

_Five: Shortly after the fourth trial, I figured out that due to the lack of specifics in the sensory code, Hinata’s AI was cornered into the cause/effect logic/simulation function, one that I have been insistent about avoiding since the beginning. This means that Hinata’s program was never truly AI._

_Due to this fact, I deleted Hinata’s memory to continue on Ver. 4, where I focused solely on sensory trials. Hinata’s body is perfect now, and I am pleased that his emotional response has improved. For ver. 5 I hope to start clean for the last time, incorporating all of the finishing touches made in ver. 4 into his design. This model is projected to be the final— the one in which we are able to witness true artificial life._

_I miss talking to Hinata. I hope his AI develops soon._

_Oikawa checks the date: exactly two years and two months since he met Hinata for the fifth and final time. Version five, artificial life._

Oikawa shuts his computer down, rests his head against the cool granite of his desk counter.

Fact: If A is true, then A is true.

Oikawa hurt a version of Hinata, and that much is certain. Hinata, from years ago, when Hinata wasn’t Hinata and wasn’t completely alive, but was simulating a conscious that Oikawa could hurt, both physically and emotionally. Hinata, the real one, the living, thinking one, was not the one he hurt. He hurt a program in the name of science, did routine tests on a machine to see if it was working correctly. It doesn’t change that he terrorized a thing that was so Hinata-like the memory of hurting him haunts him, clouds him in guilt. It doesn't change the fact that Oikawa fell in love with Hinata from the moment he developed a personality that enchanted him.

Fact: If A+B=C, then C must be true.

Hinata’s programming means that his capability to love was never restricted in any way. He was programmed to adapt, to grow based off of what is around him, and was made to develop his own preferences and certain personality traits as he does so. 

Fact: If Hinata can love, he can love more than one person.

Oikawa is an inventor, a computer scientist and physicist, not a philosopher. Science is cold, unforgiving like nature and the blunt words of evolution. Oikawa can accept this, can work around the sharp edges with math and data, scrape his nails across what science deems possible. He can do it, and always has. But when philosophy and faith intertwine with fact, when moral judgment is held above logic, Oikawa finds himself lost for words. He never thought he would have trouble judging AI until he fell in love with the creation he was supposed to be judging, never thought the greatest challenge of creating artificial life would be falling in love.

Oikawa bites down on his lip hard enough to draw blood, prays it’ll drag him out of his own head. It doesn’t, and instead he is left remembering the way Hinata’s weight feels when he rests on his chest.

—

“What about this one?” Hinata asks Iwaizumi, pointing to his own sketch of a rose. “What does it mean?”

They’re sitting cross legged on the patio, Hinata’s elaborate collection of pressed flowers spread out before them. Roses, ivy, and weeds alike lay flattened against the wood, their desaturated colours blending in with the browns of the patio floor. Iwaizumi shudders slightly at the evening air, and tugs his sleeves down to cover more of his hands as he follows Hinata’s finger to the flower in question.

It’s a wild rose, the pressed version lying on the page beside it, taped secure. Hinata’s sketch is messy, but beautiful, capturing the image of the many petals in bold strokes of black and pink ink. Iwaizumi thumbs the edge of the page, leaning closer to Hinata as he speaks.

“Wild roses mean a lot of things. In ancient Rome, you would place a rose on the doormat when telling a secret. They have ties to many religions as well,” Iwaizumi tells him. His voice is soft, and he lets his eyes flicker upwards to Hinata, watching as he stares intently at the page as he writes out Iwaizumi’s description next to his picture. Iwaizumi ignores the way his stomach twists at the sight of Hinata struggling to keep the sleeve of his worn green sweater out of the ink, the way he sticks his tongue out from his lips in concentration.

They’re making a small catalogue of all the flowers Hinata has pressed, placing them into a blank journal Hinata took from Oikawa’s shelf. As Iwaizumi tapes the flowers to their respective pages, Hinata draws them out, doing his best to recreate the plants in pen and marker. When they finish, Hinata writes down the name, and asks Iwaizumi for what they mean.

But beside ever sketch of each flower is a small sentence, seemingly unrelated to the page itself. Things like _pretty_ , or _different_ , but also _orion returned_ , and _summertime means longer days_. It wasn’t until Hinata wrote _he used to live in Japan_ that Iwaizumi realized what Hinata was writing— his conversations with Oikawa upon finding them.

It’s not that he’s jealous, but a certain kind of uncharacteristic bitterness resides in the back of his throat at Hinata’s adoration with Oikawa. It’s soft, beautiful, the kind of thing that captivates you without trying and keeps you frozen in place. Their love is a dance that doesn't make sense, because the machine moves as fluidly as the person, the machine stares at the person with a desperate kind of _wanting_ so possessed by humanity that it seems strange. And Oikawa looks at Hinata with longing Iwaizumi doesn't quite know how to understand, a kind of longing that makes him wonder if Hinata is just a machine after all.

Hinata finishes writing the description of the flower, passing the page over to Iwaizumi to look over. Their fingertips brush in the exchange, and Iwaizumi tries hard not to blush at the useless contact, looks down at the paper and instantly towards the note besides the sketch.

_Hajime_.

Hinata is smiling at him when Iwaizumi looks back up, as soft and delicate as the petals pressed between paper sheets. Iwaizumi feels his heart contract at the sight of it, at the name, his name, written on the paper in Hinata’s small handwriting. It makes every inch of him buzz, with anticipation and something akin to fear of the way Hinata feels about him. Iwaizumi releases his breath, and smiles back to Hinata. There is another reason he feels heat rise to his cheeks as Hinata takes the page back, their fingers brushing needlessly. Another thing, one which he doesn't want to think about.

—

Hinata rests his head atop Oikawa’s chest, feels the rise and fall of his breathing as he types away on his computer in front of him. Hinata sits in his lap, draped across his body much like a cat. Hinata lets himself relax, pressing soft kisses onto Oikawa’s shoulders whenever he finds him getting to tense. The room is silent, the only noises the soft clicks from Oikawa’s keyboard as he works.

It’s nice, comforting, even, but a question nags at the back of Hinata’s head, one that he can’t help from slipping out.

“Can love exists between more than two people?” Hinata asks, “Can I love more than one person the way I love you?”

Oikawa freezes underneath him completely, seizing his muscles tight. He reaches forward and powers off his computer, the machine switching off with a low hum before removing the main source of light, its screen, from the room. 

Oikawa grabs Hinata around his hips, lifting him up and placing him onto his desk so he can shift his legs. Hinata watches as Oikawa rubs his face, wondering if he can’t come up with an answer. 

The silence between them pierces through both of their throats, makes any words that want to come out be choked down in effort not to break the silence. Hinata’s gaze is unwavering, and he does not look away from Oikawa, awaiting an answer.

“Why do you want to know?” Oikawa finally asks, the question coming out more like a breath, a rushed exhale than a sentence. 

Hinata wants to say that there's an ache in his chest now when he looks at Iwaizumi, that something odd pull him towards the man with frown lines and a smile that looks much better than his scowl. Hinata wants to tell Oikawa about how he thinks this love is different, how loving Iwaizumi is amber while loving him is blue, how loving Oikawa is like a breath of cool air but loving Iwaizumi is like a blanket wrapped around your waist. He wants to tell Oikawa that Iwaizumi is something different to him, something more than friendship, something that’s been blooming, that's been sprouting up from the soil. Hinata wants to tell Oikawa that this doesn't mean he loves him any less, doesn't change the fact that’d he’d do anything and everything for him.

Hinata wants to say this, and he does, the words pouring out of his lips before he can stop them. Oikawa listens, eyes wide, lips parted and expression soft, as if he doesn't know what to think. And Oikawa watches as Hinata slits open his chest and pours out his heart, shows him the things that he holds dear: the flowers that he picks, the music he likes, every single sweater he stole from Oikawa’s closet. Oikawa lets him speak, holds him close without breaking his gaze.

Oikawa coughs before he speaks, averts his eyes and runs his hands down Hinata’s arms. “I—I think you already know the answer to that,” he murmurs, dropping his hands from Hinata’s arms. He turns away, rolling his chair backwards and standing up. Hinata watches as he walks to the corner of the room, shoulders shaking, breaths shallow. He turns, and the light catches a gleam across his cheeks. It is only then that it clicks in Hinata’s mind:

Oikawa is crying.

“Tooru,” Hinata says, stepping off of where he is sat on the desk and moving over towards him. “What’s wrong?”

Oikawa inhales again, sharp, his breath catching on something in his throat as he tries to speak. Hinata reaches upwards, touches his chin with his fingertips, face dropping with concern. He doesn't want Oikawa to feel this way— doesn't want to be the reason Oikawa feels this way.

“Iwaizumi is a good person, an amazing person, Hinata,” Oikawa tells him. His voice is still quiet, cracking like ice under hot water. “I understand, I do—”

Suddenly, Hinata reaches upwards, grabbing Oikawa’s face with both hands. He pulls him down to his height, mechanics whirring with the extra strength needed to do so. Oikawa is surprised, surprised enough that his sniffling stops for a moment, eyes blowing even wide as Hinata presses their foreheads together.

“Tooru, you heard me. I love you, and I love Iwaizumi. That doesn't make you any less then you were before,” Hinata whispers. “Tooru, I am in love with you. I am yours, and you are mine. Loving Iwaizumi doesn't change this, does it?”

_No_ , Oikawa tells him, and it’s the truth. Hinata’s love for him and Iwaizumi is natural, should be natural, but he can’t shake the doubt that lingers on the back of his neck, whispering the idea that there must be a flaw, that Hinata is not capable to love the way he is supposed to. And as Hinata stands onto his toes and kisses the tears from Oikawa’s eyes, he forces the doubt, the guilt that he can’t place, the fears he does not want to think about into the corner of his mind where he does not think about them. He focuses only on Hinata, on the way he nuzzles his nose into the crook of his neck and wraps his hands around his waist. 

_He loves me,_ he thinks, _he loves me, he loves me._

—

Iwaizumi notices it out of the corner of his eye. The way Hinata and Oikawa catch glances, the purposeful touches, the way Hinata looks over to Oikawa with something much more concentrated, something much more powerful than longing. Iwaizumi isn’t stupid, nor is he oblivious. He sees the way Hinata trails after Oikawa with adoration glazed over his eyes, he sees the way Oikawa relishes in the attention. He’s seen it— the brush of lips when they think he isn't paying attention, the way Hinata drapes himself over Oikawa in a way that is more than friendly. He’s listened to Hinata talk, heard every second word pertain to him, pertain to Oikawa Tooru in a way that Iwaizumi doesn't want to ignore. It raises the hairs on the back of Iwaizumi’s neck, seeing them like this. 

Oikawa is mean, possessive, terrifying. Iwaizumi has seen it firsthand, has watched him ruthlessly pick apart businessmen and customers alike. He’s seen him charm his way through government firewalls with ease, seen him hack his way into information he probably shouldn't need, all for the sole sake of knowing. Iwaizumi knows Oikawa, knows the parts of him that are kind and loyal, but also the parts that can break you in ways you could never imagine. 

Strangely, Iwaizumi doesn’t fear for himself. He fears for the naïvety of Hinata, of this AI that has never seen the world.

Iwaizumi sits on his bed, rubs his eyes again. He hasn’t slept at all, and by now the nighttime hours have dwindled away into the early morning. His bedside clock reads 2:32am in flashing green letters. Iwaizumi blinks the sleep from his eyes and groggily rises up, reaching for the remote control on his bedside table.

He isn’t sure what makes him click on the CCTV feed of Hinata’s room. The bright LED lights of the tv scorch the backs of Iwaizumi’s eyes, makes him squint at the sudden brightness as he struggles to turn it down. The white light sends eerie shadows across the room, illuminating the creases in Iwaizumi’s blankets and the hollows of his own body. Once his eyes adjust to the change of light, he makes out a figure on the screen. Hinata is sitting with his hands on the charging pads, headphones slipped into each ear. He isn’t wearing any clothes, for once, and Iwaizumi has the chance to look at his transparent torso, and forearms, has the chance to look at the mechanisms that usually lie hidden under sweaters too big.

Iwaizumi pulls the covers higher up his chest as he leans against the headboard, adjusting himself so he can comfortably watch Hinata. It must be odd— he realizes distantly, but Hinata knows he does it, and doesn't seem phased by the fact. This isn’t something Iwaizumi does, hell, it’s something _Oikawa_ would do. In a fit of self disgust and guilt, Iwaizumi tosses the remote into the corner of the room. It lands without much of a noise, landing cushioned by a decorative pillow Iwaizumi had kicked off the bed. 

Iwaizumi groans at his motion, already regretting it, now needing to get out of his bed to turn the television off. Untangling himself from the security of his bed, he makes his way over to the remote and bends over to pick it off the floor, mumbling to himself as he does so. It’s too late to be thinking of Oikawa and Hinata’s obsession, too late to be worrying about whether or not he recuperates his feelings.

_Who am I kidding,_ Iwaizumi thinks. _Of course I do._

As he straightens his back and stands back up, Iwaizumi lets himself look over to the television one last time, just as Hinata stands up. Attention caught by the movement, Iwaizumi watches as he reaches for a tawny knit sweater lying on the ground and pulls it over his head, grey body effortlessly moving as if really muscle and skin. Iwaizumi furrows his brow as the sweater falls around his small frame, drowns out his figure. Hinata seems content, small smile gracing his features as he fixes the sleeves. As he begins to walk towards where the door is, Hinata looks up towards the camera. For a single second, Iwaizumi holds his eye contact through the screen. For some reason, he thinks that Hinata knows he is there.

Iwaizumi blinks twice, then shuts the TV off. The room is once again engulfed in darkness, and Iwaizumi stays where he stands, headache forming at the change of light once again. As patterns flash across his retinas, Iwaizumi finds his legs moving without command, carrying him towards the door. He’s only faintly aware of the fact that all he’s wearing is a pair of grey sweats, that it’s two in the morning and he has no clue where he is going. His feet brings him out of his room and into the starkly lit hall, through the maze of winding corners and turns he’s now had memorized by necessity. 

It’s only when Iwaizumi begins to climb the stairs that he realizes where he’s headed. By the time he’s made it to the entryway to the kitchen, he can make out two figures by the counters. Staying in the shadows casted from the moonlight that pours in from the wall-to-wall windows, Iwaizumi looks over to where they stand.

Oikawa looms over Hinata, arms wrapped around him, holding him in some kind of careful embrace. Hinata is sat upon the counter, legs spread so that Oikawa can stand comfortably between them. He seems content, enamoured, interest clear even through the darkness as he wraps his arms around Oikawa’s neck. They aren't kissing, but Iwaizumi can hear the shaky breaths that escape Oikawa’s lips as he brings his nose to the crook of Hinata’s neck. It seems strangely private, the way Oikawa’s hand slides under Hinata’s sweater, traces his fingertips down his torso. Hinata shivers, and it’s the first time Iwaizumi has ever witness him ever have a reaction as such, one where his face goes blank with surprise before returning to that one of adoration.

Oikawa _worships_ Hinata, runs his lips down Hinata’s neck and onto his collarbone. Hinata leans his head back, arches his back, and Oikawa adjusts his hold on him so that he can gain more access to his neck. Little whispered mantras of each other’s names flood the room, hushed _Too-ru’s_ and _Shouyou’s_ cloud Iwaizumi’s ears even more than his own heartbeat. Iwaizumi can feel heat rise to cheeks as he stays in the shadows, watching the muscles of Oikawa’s back move, listening to the small noises that slip from Hinata’s lips. Oikawa’s pants lay dangerously low on his hips, and Hinata’s dainty hands suddenly dart out to grab at his back, a drawn out whine spilling through the room. 

_Oh_ , Iwaizumi realizes. _That’s what’s happening._

Iwaizumi is suddenly aware of the way Hinata looks, the blissed out expression on his face, the way he drinks in every kiss, every touch from Oikawa, how Oikawa venerates him in return. It’s something rooted in mutual obsession, something Iwaizumi can’t psychoanalyze either because of how late it is at night or because of the fact that the two other people who live here are doing something obscene on the kitchen counter. Every hitch of breath sounds like a scream, every mumble of names like mantra.

Iwaizumi grows aware of the two choices he has in that moment. He could, obviously, turn around, leave, and imagine this never happened, which would be ideal if not for the fact that his feet are glued to the floor, that his legs physically will not move. The second, and unfortunately, more likely, would be staying put, watching the entire scene unravel before his eyes. 

Somehow, he comes to a strange compromise, turning and ducking behind the other side of the wall, waiting for the noises to stop, hands covering his mouth, eyes wide in utter disbelief at what is currently happening. He can hear hushed whispers and mumblings, words that can’t be made out from the moans and hums. The noises echo off of the walls and fill the kitchen, make Iwaizumi aware of how intrusive he’s being and how he should really go away. Against any logical judgment, he stays, keeps completely silent and tries to banish the image of Hinata’s rolled back eyes and half parted lips, jaw slick, lips shining from spit.

It’s feels like ages before the room falls silent again, the quiet painfully loud and only broken by heavy breaths and breathy laughs. Iwaizumi rubs his eyes, pinches his arm as if this is all some kind of weird wet dream he can wake up from. He can hear shuffling— what he can only assume is Oikawa cleaning Hinata up, holds his breath and prays he won’t be heard. Iwaizumi waits a few more minutes before reasoning he can probably walk in under the guise of getting a glass of water.

With uncharacteristically shaky legs, Iwaizumi moves from where he leans on the wall and enters the kitchen, freezing when he sees Hinata resting his chin on Oikawa’s shoulder, humming in content from his place on the counter. Iwaizumi watches as Oikawa kisses him, slow, soft, without care, before turning his head and looking over to Iwaizumi.

“Oh, hello Iwa-chan,” Oikawa smirks, moving to slips his hands from Hinata’s waist. Hinata is flushed at the sight of Iwaizumi’s eyes wide, but he still whines at the loss of contact. Offering Iwaizumi a tentative look, Hinata cocks his head to the side in slight confusion.

“What are you doing here?” Hinata asks, lips parted, eyes unwavering and challenging through the blue moonlight. 

Iwaizumi opens his mouth, stutters out a response that consists of maybe an excuse of water, maybe a confession of watching them fuck, and maybe a question of how the latter was even possible. 

Moving faster than he even thought possible, Iwaizumi slips back into the hallway and stumbles his way back to his room, pushing every thought of what he just witnessed from his mind. With shaky hands he unlocks his door and pushes his way through, falling onto his bed and pulling the covers around him. When he closes his eyes, the image of Hinata is burned into the back of his eyes.

Iwaizumi doesn't sleep a wink that night.

—

The next day is spent working, much like the ones before. Iwaizumi tries to find Oikawa to talk about what happened last night, tries to come up with a game plan to ask about what is going on, but draws a solid blank, mind switching between images he wants to remember and wishes to forget— Hinata, eyes closed, eyes wide, lips parted, words drawn out and high. Iwaizumi can hardly think, let alone work with these thoughts pushing through his head.

Dinner comes in what feels like seconds, and Iwaizumi isn’t sure if it’s a good or bad thing. He gets to talk to Oikawa, but that in itself is a problem. His head pounds just thinking about it facing both him and Hinata, and he prays that they both will have forgotten the entire incident.

He isn’t that lucky.

Iwaizumi walks into the dining room where Oikawa sits, meal in front of him, laughing at something Hinata is doing. Iwaizumi turns his attention to Hinata, who sits cross legged on the table, struggling to hold a pair of chopsticks. Oikawa laughs, light, soft, and so unlike how he usually does under public eyes. He reaches over, nimbly adjusts Hinata’s hand around the wooden sticks before presenting his own, swooping up a piece of food with ease to demonstrate. Hinata tries to mimic him, drops his chopsticks and pouts as they clatter against the table. 

Iwaizumi smiles at Hinata, an airy laugh escaping his throat before he can stop it. Hinata whips his head around to face him, breaking into a smile as his eyes brighten. Oikawa raises a brow, and Iwaizumi clears his mind of anything but the moment to prevent his face from heating up and turning a bright shade of red. He tears his eyes away from the both of them, takes his seat across from Hinata. All he wants is to finish his meal as quickly as possible, avoid making contact, eye or otherwise, with Hinata, and keep the conversation away from what he had walked into. 

For the most part, he’s able to. Oikawa settles on musing about Hinata’s progress in chopstick use, and Hinata is too absorbed in proving he knows how to use them that the topic of last night isn’t brought up. Iwaizumi relaxes, lets himself enjoy his expensive meal as Hinata continues to try and pick some of the rolls up.

After several unsuccessful tries, Hinata finally manages to copy Oikawa’s movements to a tee, shakily picking up a roll with a whoop of excitement. Oikawa claps in celebration, opens his mouth to say something but it cut off by Hinata shoving the entire roll into his mouth. He makes a strangled noise of surprise, eyes blowing wide, expression ugly enough that it makes Iwaizumi snort. Hinata grins, tongue between his teeth, turn to Iwaizumi and offers him one. 

Suddenly, the memories of Hinata pressed against the counter rise to his mind, and Iwaizumi feels his blood run cold. He shakes his head, taking a large sip of his drinks as he moves to turn away from Hinata.

“Iwaizumi?” Hinata asks, voice laced with concern. “What’s wrong?”

Oikawa waves his hand, now having chewed and swallowed his food. “He probably just remembered walking in on us, Shou-chan,” he tells him. “Could you clean this up?”

Hinata looks like he wants to say something, but decides against it, instead choosing to stare at Oikawa with wide, adoring eyes. He nods, licking his lips and sighs as he moves to adjust his sweater— the very same one from the night before, around him. Slipping off the table, he leans over to Oikawa to press a kiss to his cheek, then turns to Iwaizumi to blow a kiss as he picks up the empty plates. Iwaizumi controls the part of him that wants to kiss him for real, furrows his brow and moves closer to Oikawa as Hinata turn away to clean up to finally talk about what happened.

“He’s fucking drooling over you, Shittykawa,” Iwaizumi hisses. “What the hell are you doing with him?”

Oikawa groans like a child being scolded, rolls his eyes. “Listen, there isn’t anything for you to be stressing over. Do I need to explain the birds and the bees to you?”

Iwaizumi raises his brows. “I’m sorry, I just saw you fucking an artificial human. God, leave it to you to make your robots fuckable. Does he even _know_ —”

“Of course he knows,” Oikawa scoffs. He moves away from Iwaizumi, leaning up against the fridge. An aura of untouchableness radiates from Oikawa, “You’re wasting your time thinking about these things, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa tells him. Iwaizumi sighs, already frustrated with Oikawa’s indifference. It makes his skin itch, makes him turn away to leave.

Iwaizumi freezes when he hears Oikawa clear his throat. He turns back around in time to see him walk over to Hinata and slide an arm around his waist.

“However, you wouldn't be wasting your time,” Oikawa says, pausing for what Iwaizumi can only assume is dramatic effect, “—dancing.”

Suddenly, with a simple snap of Oikawa’s fingers, the entire room lights up in fuchsia and red. Iwaizumi is about to ask what the _hell_ is happening when eighties funk begins to play, and Hinata begins to dance.

It’s a shock to the system, the absolute arbitral way the mood changes. Iwaizumi really wonders if he’s high right now. Did Oikawa slip something in his food earlier? Is there some kind of gas in the air? Or was this all some strange, illusionary way of him avoiding talking about what had happened?

All logical thought leaves him as his eyes zone in on Hinata. He dances without a care, motions sure and without thought. It looks natural, the way he raises his hands above his head and jumps in time with the music. Each side step, each pointed look to Iwaizumi with his tongue between his teeth, each roll of his hips is painfully attractive and Iwaizumi refuses to think there isn’t some method to his madness. Hinata pouts at Iwaizumi’s lack of reaction, spins with his lip pushes out and dances his way over to Oikawa instead. Oikawa grins, moves to place a hand on the small of Hinata’s back, and begins to guide him across the makeshift dance floor.

Oikawa moves to twirl Hinata, grabs his hands and twists their bodies to the beat of the bass. Iwaizumi can only watch as Hinata shimmies his shoulders, leans back so that his front presses against Oikawa and his head hangs upside down, facing Iwaizumi. His face is content, eyes closed and unexplainably happy. Suddenly, he snaps back up, and Iwaizumi is forced to look at Oikawa’s smug expression as Hinata squats low to his hips before popping back up and moon walking away. Oikawa continues to mirror his dance moves, grinning in pure glee at Hinata’s movements.

Iwaizumi shakes his head, watches as Oikawa turns his head and yells something over the music. Iwaizumi can make out the way his lips move, can hear him call _join us!_ through a laugh. Iwaizumi mutters something under his breath, storms over to Oikawa and yanks him towards him.

“He’s _obsessed_ with you,” Iwaizumi scolds, grabbing Oikawa’s arm in attempt to stop him from dancing. “Can you not see?”

“He’s _in love_ with me. And with _you_ , for that matter,” Oikawa responds, voice matter of fact. “Loosen up, a little dancing isn’t going to hurt you.”

Iwaizumi becomes aware of Hinata’s gaze on him, on his hand that is currently gripping onto Oikawa. He drops his hand from Oikawa’s arm and takes a step back blinking hard in confusion. Chills are sent down his spine just by the look, and he has an eerie feeling of coldness wash over him. He looks over to Oikawa, who, although less surprised, has hairs raises on his arms. The pair wait a moment before Oikawa sighs and snaps his fingers again, switching the lights back to normal and shutting the music back off. Hinata relaxes, smiling wide as nothing had happened.

Iwaizumi can’t think straight, mind repeating _he’s in love with you_ on a loop like a skipping record. It makes his head pound, heart clench, adds to the images of Hinata that swirl around his head— and not just the ones from the night before. Hinata laughing, sitting on the counter, blushing, talking, picking flowers, looking at him, and even looking at Oikawa. Somehow the latter doesn't stir jealousy like he thought it would, but instead heightens his confusion and fear at Hinata’s obsession, adoration.

Iwaizumi turns and leaves without so much of a goodbye, walks out of the dining room on autopilot and makes his way towards his room. He can hear Hinata talking to Oikawa, worried, and Oikawa speaking in return, consoling and reassuring, and hears, _“Go. I’ll see you later, okay?”_ Iwaizumi doesn't stop to think what it could mean as he jogs down the stairs and through the winding halls to his room. He stops when he hears whirring, the distinct but soft mechanical noises of Hinata moving behind him. 

“Iwaizumi?” Hinata asks, voice small, tentative. Iwaizumi doesn't know what the feeling is inside him, but it makes him shiver and swell all at once.

He unlocks the door to his room, slips in and doesn't manage to close it before Hinata can follow him. His room is less messy than the days prior, clothes in the laundry and papers in one stack in the corner. It’s by no means neat or tidy— the bed is unmade, the decorative pillows are discarded on the ground— but Iwaizumi can’t focus on that when Hinata is standing in front of him, face worried and pained and something so akin to love it hurts.

“I didn’t mean to walk in on you and Oikawa,” Iwaizumi tells him. “But—“

“Hajime,” Hinata says, cheeks flushed red. “It’s okay.”

“I just—”

“You don’t need to be embarrassed—”

“Do you love me?” Iwaizumi asks. Its blunt and loud and cuts through the conversation like dead weight, makes the entire mood shift in a moment.

“Yes,” Hinata breaths, soft, flowing from his lips without hesitation. “Do you love me too?”

Iwaizumi’s breath stops flat in his lungs, and he scrambles to try and find the words to respond. “I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “But you’re the only thing on my mind.”

Iwaizumi doesn't have time to regret letting the truth slip out of his mouth before Hinata is reaching upwards, rising onto his toes to press a kiss to Iwaizumi’s lips. It’s messy and slow, and Iwaizumi can’t help but tense at the start, worries still rushing through his head. Could he do this? What would Oikawa think? Is he being just as bad as him?

“Shh,” Hinata says, pulling away to whisper against his lips. “You’re thinking too much. Tooru said it was okay that I loved you. He doesn't mind.”

Iwaizumi lets himself be pulled in for another kiss, but doesn't push away the lingering thought of Hinata’s words. Every other word is a name of someone else, of someone who lives life in secret and manipulation, who’s self-centred lifestyle won’t change because his own creation has a heart. Iwaizumi can’t help but worry, wondering if his task will be skewered by what he’s doing now.

He needs to talk to Oikawa, he knows that, but for now, he lets himself relax, rests his hands on Hinata’s hips and kisses him soft— as if he were to break like china or glass. Delicate. Sharp. _Beautiful_.

—

There is a perpetual chill in the air around Oikawa’s research facility, either from its remote location in northern Norway or the close proximity of a glacier. Either way, the air outside is cold— too much so for Oikawa to ever get used to. Oikawa stretches out his fingers in his gloves, watches his breath fog out in front of him. He double checked all of the locks on the doors, tested the security coding three times, and looked over every single window to look for cracks. Iwaizumi looked at him funny when he did it, and Oikawa knows how neurotic he must look. He can’t help it— Iwaizumi suggested they go for a hike, and Oikawa worries about Hinata being left alone. It hasn’t happened once in two years, even for a moment.

Oikawa rolls out his shoulder, looks behind him to where Iwaizumi follows. He knows what he wants, can feel the suspicion brewing between them. Oikawa thinks back to Hinata’s look of confusion, of the pain in his eyes when he told him they were heading out. It’s the very same dependance that used to make him sick, the exact same that he’s accepted when he placed his heart into Hinata’s hands. 

They’re heading through a path thick with foliage and rocks, the rich scent of petrichor seeping from the plants and soil, clinging like cologne to their clothes. Oikawa has memorized every path and trail like the back of his hand, knows the twists and turns well enough that he doesn't have to think when he takes them. It’s the first time, he realizes, that he’s been on this path with another person. It’s too dangerous for Hinata to travel quite yet, and Oikawa hasn’t been this way since before version four.

Iwaizumi keeps pace with him easy, the sounds of his footsteps echoing Oikawa’s, the only reminder beside from his breaths that there is another person with him. Oikawa wants to plan what to say— their destination is growing closer along with the inevitable confrontation that brews. His mind stays blank, void of thought or plan, nothing sitting on his mind except a yearning to scream.

He misses Hinata, knows that he would have his own way to calm Oikawa, to untwist the knots from his stomach. It’s pathetic, that he’s yearning for the touch of someone he just saw a few hours ago. He wonders if that’s why they fit so well together— their infatuation with each other is synonymous with obsession at this point. Oikawa slows to a stop as he reaches a clearing, bends over to rest his hands on his knees and laughs. It tastes bitter in his mouth, like three days without brushing his teeth or water with too many minerals. 

Iwaizumi isn’t far behind, footsteps crunching over saplings and ice as he gains his footing on the rocks beside him. Oikawa can hear the sharp intake of Iwaizumi’s breath at the sight in front of him, straightens his back to take a look at the scenery himself. It’s a glacier, feeding into a river that slopes down the rocky hill, crystal clear, adding to the ambience of laboured breathing and birdsong. Water rushes, heaps of ice melt and flow into the stream. Oikawa tries to collect his thoughts as he sits at the river bank, looking at the glacier across the river. Iwaizumi moves to sit beside him, and Oikawa does everything in his power to control the impulse to drown himself in the icy waters to avoid whatever confrontation is to come.

The air is thin and cold, tastes like metal and winter even though it is only November, makes every breath hard either from the temperature or tension that churns between him and Iwaizumi. It’s a matter of time, really, before Iwaizumi speaks up, not even to mention the beauty around them.

“Why don’t you worry about Hinata?” Iwaizumi asks, grabbing a pebble from the bank and tossing it into the air. He catches it with ease, not sparing Oikawa a second glance as he continues the pattern, waiting for a response.

Oikawa swallows the knot in his throat, tongue sharpening at Iwaizumi’s accusation. “Do you not think I worry?” he seethes, words coming out undiluted and poisonous beyond his control. It makes him so, so outraged, that Iwaizumi could ever think of him that way. It hits him that he’s done more than enough to sustain his suspicion, but the offence is taken either way, drills itself into his sternum and berries itself between his lungs.

Iwaizumi turns to face him, anger boiling into his features. “He’s obsessed with you— you _let_ him be obsessed with you. Is that not imperative to his AI? Is it not concerning to you that the only two people he’s seen in real life are the ones he’s fallen ‘in love’ with? Are you not the least bit concerned that this adoration, this— this fucking _neurosis_ is going to ruin him?”

Oikawa wonders if he really has been pushed into the river, because his blood turns to glacial water as soon as the last word leaves Iwaizumi’s lips. He’s shaking, in fear, in anger, in _confusion_ over how Iwaizumi could know what he’s done.

_He doesn’t know_ , Oikawa thinks, _doesn’t know, doesn’t know, doesn’t know._

And that’s true— there’s no possible way Iwaizumi could know he terrorized an android that wasn’t an AI, a robot with Hinata’s face. There’s no way he could know that Oikawa fell in love with Hinata long before he was ‘real,’ there’s no way he could know that Hinata’s personality seemed to latch onto Oikawa as if he were a narcotic. Oikawa exhales, breath quivering, air fogging out in front of him as his eyesight blurs. He can’t think straight, can’t get the image of Hinata, sparking, metallic frame broken and bent, fear so potent in his eyes as he stares at _him_.

He’s pulled from his thoughts by the sound of Iwaizumi standing, brushing the dirt and ice off his pants. Oikawa follows in suit, puts on his best face and raises his chin, uses all five centimetres of height to loom over Iwaizumi and stare down at him with intimidation that sends most into shudders. Iwaizumi swallows thickly, adam's apple bobbing, but does make an effort to move.

“Why did you bring me here, Oikawa?” Iwaizumi seethes, taking a step closer to him and the river. “You’re treating Hinata like a person, yet asking me to criticize his humanity. You don’t doubt yourself, you never ask for the opinions of your friends, and don’t you dare deny that’s what we are. Oikawa, what is really happening here?”

Oikawa feels guilt broil, feels it try and claw its way from his throat and force him to beg for forgiveness and mercy. Instead, Oikawa leans down, sneers and bares his teeth in attempt to mask the internal fear of Iwaizumi knowing that battles in his chest.

“I think you’ve forgotten why you’re here,” Oikawa hisses. “And I think you’ve forgotten what I’m doing for you.”

It’s the truth— Iwaizumi’s hero complex, his desperate need to be good is often mistaken for selflessness rather than a self centred attitude. Oikawa waits a second to watch Iwaizumi’s reaction, enough of a rise brought out from him to make Oikawa satisfied as he turns around to get a head start on heading back to the facility. He feels lightheaded, feels like he’s breathing underwater, feels like he’s suspended midair. Oikawa grabs his water bottle from where it’s strapped to his leg, downs half the bottle and lets the water trickle down his chin. He hears Iwaizumi’s footsteps stop behind him, but doesn't turn around, instead pausing in place and keeping his gaze forwards as Iwaizumi speaks.

“You’re just as obsessed as he is, aren’t you?” Iwaizumi mutters.

_Yes_ , Oikawa thinks, but doesn't stop to answer, continues forwards through the forest and foliage without looking back.

—

Hinata rests his head onto Oikawa’s chest, pushing him against the glass window. Freezing rain pelts down from the sky, pitter patters against the panes loud enough to drown out the sounds of Hinata’s mechanics and Oikawa’s breathing. It’s enchanting - the muted noises and the sight of storms and the forest that stretches out for miles before them. 

It’s quiet— too quiet to be contemplative, foreboding and tense in a way Hinata doesn’t understand. He looks from the view back up towards Oikawa, stares at the blank expression that lies behind his eyes. Hinata is confused, doesn't understand why Oikawa could look as distant as he is now. With hands so delicate they are barely there, Hinata brushes his fingertips on Oikawa’s chin, turning it so that Oikawa can face him. 

Smiling softly, Hinata presses closer into Oikawa’s embrace, swipes his thumb against Oikawa’s cheek and brushes off an eyelash that laid there. Oikawa moves his gaze towards him, exhales enough that his shoulders drop, but not his face, something sister to fear still in his face.

“What’s wrong?” Hinata asks him, not letting his stare linger from Oikawa’s eyes.

Oikawa’s facade falters for a moment before he quirks the corner on his mouth into what must be a smile, looks away from Hinata’s eyes and to their entwined hands. “Nothing, Shouyou,” he assures him. “Look at the storm. Isn’t it beautiful?”

_Yes_ , Hinata breaths, but he can’t get the image of Oikawa’s smile when he lied out of his mind. The clouds swirl above the trees outside, chaotic and calculated to create and orchestra of howling wind and whipping tree branches and the sounds of _Jo Hisashi_ and piano humming from the speakers in the kitchen. The anxiety that buzzes in Oikawa’s skin seeps into his own mechanics, makes something inside of him twist in a way that hurts like no other emotion he’s felt. There is a sense of unshakable worry that sets itself only Hinata’s shoulders, and he doesn't know how to make it go away.

Suddenly, the tension snaps. A long, drawn out alarm buzzes for ten long seconds, the lights in the entire room dimming before flickering back. Oikawa stiffens behind him, a sharp breath sucked in through his lungs. _Strange_ , Hinata thinks, _how you can tell so much about a human from how they breathe_. It makes something inside of him flutter in a way much more uncomfortable than love, like standing at the edge of a cliff and free falling.

“What was that?” Hinata asks as Oikawa lifts him off of his lap and rises to a stand.

Oikawa looks down towards him with narrowed eyes, momentarily coldness freezing Hinata still. His eyes quickly soften, but his lips don’t curve into their usual smile as he responds. “Stay here, Shouyou, okay?” 

Hinata nods, watches idly as Oikawa bends down to press a kiss to his forehead before exiting the room, pushing the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows as he turns out of sight. 

Something is going on, Hinata realizes. Something big, something tongue tying, tummy twisting, something he can’t ignore. He wants to follow Oikawa, wants to find Iwaizumi and ask what’s going on, wants to curl up in Oikawa’s tawny knit sweater and breath in his scent, wants to wash the anxiety away, wants to run to _someone_ —

But he doesn’t. He listens, he stays put, facing the forest and all its life, wind still whispering through the trees.

—

Iwaizumi isn’t sure what draws him back to Oikawa’s lab.

Maybe it’s sheer curiosity, or the fact that there is so much about Hinata he doesn’t know. Maybe it’s because Iwaizumi can’t even be sure what he’s even here to do, or maybe it’s in due course when everything Iwaizumi knows about Oikawa seems like one intricate lie. Somewhere in his mind, he understands that there’s more to Hinata, another story he doesn’t yet know. As Iwaizumi rounds the corner, shedding his rain soaked windbreaker onto the ground, he feels his stomach tighten. 

It becomes clear to him that bliss is what he’s been breathing this whole time, licking it up like sugar residue on dried lips. He thought of himself spoiled— with Hinata’s existence, with Oikawa’s seemingly lax attitude, with being dead-centre of the biggest scientific event of the century. The truth had been boiling for days now, creeping up on him like the winter or a cold— something that if you ignore, won’t just go away. He’s seen it in Oikawa’s sharpened glares, in the naïve poison of Hinata’s unwavering commitment and the bitter taint— calculated, for sure— in every word spoken from Oikawa’s mouth.

Iwaizumi denies to himself that he is worried, denies to himself that the feeling in his stomach is fear, disguises it underneath a layer of curiosity of whatever secrets Oikawa’s lab may hold.

The door to the lab is luckily ajar, enough so that Iwaizumi can open without having to scan his hand— he isn’t sure that it would open for him if it wasn’t. Iwaizumi shuts it behind him, careful as if it is made of paper cards. He turns back to face the lab, looks around at the darkened room. The lights don’t respond to his voice activation, and Iwaizumi is hesitant to press any buttons in fear that he’d set off some kind of alarm. Hell, he’s afraid to take any steps off of the main walkway through the glass display cases of replicated AI machinery.

Illuminating the room, opposite from where Iwaizumi stands, is a desktop computer, _Daedalus Tech_ logo bouncing across the blue sleep screen. Iwaizumi approaches it slowly, as if it were a fawn or a dying animal, one that could be scared away by a simple movement. As he sits down on Oikawa’s chair, he half expects an alarm to blare, but is relieved when the room remains silent and dark, save the glow of the monitor and the hum of mechanics. Iwaizumi moves the computer mouse, bringing the computer from its sleeping stage to its login page. The screen is otherwise blank except for white script across the centre.

**_OIKAWA TOORU_**

**_INPUT PASSWORD:_ **

Iwaizumi bites his lip, thinks back to high school when Oikawa would walk with him on his spares. At that time, Oikawa was already attending university. Iwaizumi tries to remember a password from then. Nothing significant comes to mind, so he pushes further, to when they were kids and neither one was held above the other as a genius, as a prodigy.

(It’s funny, because Oikawa never considered himself a genius in the first place, always said he had to work to achieve what he has.)

Iwaizumi lets his fingers hover over the keyboard, sighing heavy out of his nose. His fingers shake slightly as he types in an answer. 

When they were kids, Oikawa would tell him secrets, tell him how he would travel to Mars. At the age of twelve, he popped his knee bad enough that any dreams of space travel were crushed in an instant. In seconds, a lifelong dream to go to NASA was swapped for something else, any remorse being shown in a simple shrug of shoulders and a sigh. By that age, Iwaizumi remembers, Oikawa was developing a base code for the world’s current most popular browser. Still, Iwaizumi remembers how Oikawa would spend playdates when they were only six, musing of the astronauts up in space, telling him about space stations and reading the scientific journals like bedtime stories.

_Kibo110308,_ Iwaizumi writes. The screen flashes green, and begins its startup sequence.

_Funny_ , Iwaizumi thinks, _how some things don’t change, no matter how hard you try._

The computer finishes booting up, opening to a desktop screen that steadily begins to load different sheets of data and analysis. Iwaizumi disregards most of it, clicking through the previously opened files, closing the ones that seem irrelevant. Many are illegible formulas and graphs, numbers he isn’t able to read or digital sketch pad notes that Iwaizumi can’t decipher. Oikawa’s horrendous handwriting, it seems, makes enough of a firewall on its own.

Something in the top left hand corner of the screen catches Iwaizumi’s eye. Moving one of the files out of the way, he looks closer. It’s an alert-style message, in the same script as the opening screen.

_Open previously shut files?_ It asks, red lettering harsh against the blue of the background. Something stirs inside of Iwaizumi, an indescribable pull not to open it. Against what could be his better judgement, or his worse, he does.

It takes a few moments to load, and when it does, the entire screen goes black. Iwaizumi flinches at the sudden change, whipping his head around in fear that he has set something off. When he looks back to the screen, there is a single, white title page, full screen across the monitor. **_SENSORY TRIALS_** , it reads, with big, red letters harsh on Iwaizumi’s eyes. He blinks hard to adjust to the light before examining the two options below the title: notations, or video. Iwaizumi selects video, the thought of having to decipher any more of Oikawa’s handwriting an instant _no_.

The videos are neatly arranged in the folder, the title now reading _Sensory Trials, one through five._ It’s strangely ominous, sends a chill down Iwaizumi’s spine as he selects the first video and hits play.

The video is shot through the same CCTV footage that Iwaizumi recognizes from his own television. It’s slightly grainy, but adjusts in seconds to a clear picture as Oikawa steps away from the camera and towards the figure sitting on the floor. It is not wearing any clothes, and it’s hair, although bright ginger, seems muted through the footage.

It suddenly dawns on Iwaizumi that he knows this thing, that he recognizes that room. The figure sitting in a heap on the floor is Hinata, or what seems to be him— the room is that of the one he’s seen countless times, through what could very much be the same camera.

“Version three, trial number one,” Oikawa’s recorded self says, adjusting his black leather gloves on his hands. “Testing pain, reflexes, and response. Trial commences now.”

Iwaizumi watches as Oikawa walks up to Hinata’s collapsed figure, shoes clicking against the floor. Hinata moves his head to the side to stare at Oikawa’s feet, a loud, drawn out grinding noise made in response to the movement. Iwaizumi winces, the sound like nails on a chalkboard and only half as creepy.

“Hinata,” Oikawa says, voice cool, devoid of any of his usual, or rather, current, sentiment for the creature. “Stand.”

Hinata doesn’t move for a long five seconds, but when he does, it is swift, movements calculated and robotic— a term Iwaizumi is not used to using in reference to Hinata. 

He almost doesn’t realize the irony behind that thought, distracted by the lifelike features of Hinata’s face. The emotions seem like a crude caricature in juxtaposition to his mechanical body, but each face he makes, of stunningly similar infatuation, _longing_ , are so smooth they seem almost animated. Iwaizumi leans onto his elbows, inspects the video further.

Oikawa is taking a step towards Hinata, extending his left hand out to touch Hinata’s chin and lift up towards him. He smiles, smirks, ulterior in every action as he stares Hinata down like predator and prey.

“Can I do something, Shouyou?” Oikawa asks. He shifts his weight, and Iwaizumi can faintly see something held in his right hand, but the object is obscured by his leg.

Hinata instantly nods to Oikawa’s request, eyes not blinking or moving in any way. Oikawa takes in a breath deep enough that the camera’s microphone picks up the noise, slides his hand down Hinata’s shoulder to grasp his forearm. Iwaizumi furrows his brow, instantly suspicious at the sight of Oikawa’s skin stretched white over his knuckles. It’s odd, when Hinata’s reaction to what must be a tight grip is a simple cock of his head as Oikawa turns his wrist over so that it faces upwards.

It happens so quickly Iwaizumi doesn’t see it coming— Oikawa, hand still holding onto Hinata’s, raises the object in his right hand and raises above his head, bringing it down hard enough onto Hinata’s arm to smash the mechanics of his wrist, leaving the hand limp and dangling. Iwaizumi jumps at the sound of Hinata’s scream, short, but ear piercing and loud, so much like any person’s, hoarse with surprise at Oikawa’s action. Hinata looks down to his wrist, eyes wide, studying, then back up to Oikawa, head still tilted to the side.

“You felt that, no?” Is all that Oikawa asks, brushing the glass off of the object, a thick metal bar. 

Iwaizumi isn’t sure what to expect from Hinata— his own ears still ringing, the scream ricocheting off the walls of his brain, blood boiling underneath his skin at the _audacity_ of Oikawa’s actions. With eyes glued to the scream, Iwaizumi watches as a smile spreads across Hinata’s face, eyes softening.

“Of course,” Hinata says. “Do you need to do it again?”

The response makes bile rise from the back of Iwaizumi’s throat, makes his head pound and eyes blur. He pauses the video, notices Oikawa’s face of dissatisfaction. Iwaizumi doesn’t know what to do, what to think beyond fear and surprise, anger mixed with _confusion_ as to how a man so in love with his creation could have treated it this way. Without thinking, Iwaizumi clicks on the next file, simply titled two.

The video has a different date, and Hinata has a repaired arm in replacement for the one that was shattered. This time, Hinata is sitting on what resembles a hospital bed without the paper, metallic and white, sterile beyond comprehension. Oikawa is wearing latex gloves this time, and doesn't bother turning to the camera as he announces the video title.

For the most of the video, Hinata is blindfolded, and things are held up to his nose to smell. It’s muted, numb in comparison to the last video, even though Iwaizumi is forced to sit through fifteen minutes of Oikawa making bedroom eyes to an android who can’t even see him. His voice, sultry, low, disgusts him, makes him want to smash the computer monitor into two.

Oikawa soon moves onto hearing, playing different sounds through a speaker before replicating them in real life. If Iwaizumi could shake the chills that hover atop his skin, it would be interesting to watch, to observe how Hinata distinguishes close from far, loud from quiet, real from recording. At one point, Oikawa talks normally to him, before leaning in close to press his lips to Hinata’s ear, lips and tongue brushing against his lobe as he whispers something inaudible to the camera’s microphone. Iwaizumi shudders, but Hinata does not, though his mouth opens wide and his movements suddenly freeze.

The blindfold is removed, and then Oikawa is placing different things onto Hinata’s tongue, the trial obviously now less intense. Hinata is able to tell apart raspberries from chocolate, from coffee from mint. Oikawa lifts the last item from his tongue— a clementine slice, tosses it into the trash can behind him. Hinata looks up at him expectantly, eyes bright as if expecting a reward, a prize or praise. Oikawa’s smile is still sinister, but seems playful, almost coy as he pulls of his latex gloves and tosses them into the trash.

The next thing he does is odd, creepy in the same way as things you do not want to stare at for longer than a second, burning themselves into your retinas before you can look away. Oikawa pushes two fingers past Hinata’s lips, pushes them into his mouth and twists them to press against Hinata’s cheek.

“Can you taste that?” He asks, voice teasing. Hinata smiles around his fingers, does something that makes Oikawa’s eyes widen before returning to normal. Oikawa’s eyes shift, from playful to analytical as he continues to press his fingers deeper to the back of Hinata’s throat. Hinata doesn’t protest, doesn’t react beyond fluttering his eyes closed and making a low, buzzing noise. Iwaizumi is quick to click to the next video, not sure what to anticipate next. 

The third video shows Hinata in the lab, camera head on, framing him as if he were some kind of patient, some kind of criminal. The sleek and stark background of Oikawa’s lab gives much the same feel, suffocating Iwaizumi with the thought that this had taken place not far from where he sits. Hooked up to Hinata’s body are wires and sensors, attached to his chest, hands, stomach, weaved through and behind his neck. He doesn’t have any hair in this video, multiple different scanners and sensor pads secured to his bald scalp in place of orange hair. It’s a chilling sight, hair raising, unsettling.Iwaizumi can’t see Oikawa in the recording, but can hear his voice speaking offscreen.

“Shouyou,” Oikawa starts, shuffling audible from the background. “Do you remember what happened last month?”

“Yes,” Hinata responds. He is unfazed by the entire situation, eyes trained on what Iwaizumi can only assume is Oikawa rather than him.

“Tell me what happened,” Oikawa demands, voice icy, cold, no hesitation to his words.

“You shattered my left forearm, broke the framing of my right hand, and hit both of my legs and feet,” Hinata replies. He is expressionless on the side of enchanted, lips spread into what could almost be the beginnings of a smile.

“What if I told you I would do this again?” Oikawa asks him. “Right this second. What would you do?”

Iwaizumi is about to swear when Hinata responds, as quick as before. “I would let you,” he tells him.

“Even if I don’t stop?” Oikawa presses further.

Hinata’s eyes do not look away. “Yes,” he breaths. “It’s not real, isn’t it? You’re just testing me.” 

Iwaizumi turns off the video.

He understands what Oikawa was trying to do— test Hinata’s senses, his body and physicality, but it wrenches his heart from him to watch it, to see what he knows as life to be broken in such a way, like an animal on a test table or a bull for fighting. Iwaizumi bites his fist, opens the next video and waits for it to load.

File number four contains a few hours of video footage. Iwaizumi wrinkles his nose, pulls up Oikawa’s notes in attempt to quickly see what could be happening in that time. 

Words jump off the page, _good pain_ and _bad pain_ repeated like some strange ritual in the transcripts, Oikawa’s scrawl showing obvious frustration. It’s oddly satisfying, at first, to see that anger, to watch Oikawa crumble at the pressure of a problem he can’t solve. _I don’t know yet if Hinata is receiving pain properly_ is underlined and bolded, like a message Oikawa wants to get across. Iwaizumi clicks on the corresponding video of Oikawa snapping, watches as Hinata’s eyes change from adoring to something foreign: fear.

There’s an attachment titled _incident_ that Iwaizumi feels compelled to leave unopened. The thumbnail is black, and his stomach is churning from some kind of sick hunger and desire to tear out Oikawa’s throat and ask why any of this had to happen. It’s a given that he watches the video either way, pressing play and leaning back in attempt to snap the kink in his shoulder and rid the chills looming by.

The video is by the dining room, summer sunset long gone and purple dusk illuminating the room through the windows. Hinata is carrying a bottle of expensive looking liquor, not meeting Oikawa’s eye. It’s strange, behaviour Iwaizumi has never witnessed. Oikawa’s face is apathetic, but years of reading through calm exteriors reads frustration that lies behind the lines of his eyes.

Hinata sets the bottle down and begins to move to take a seat. Before he can, Oikawa is already standing, hiking his leg up to pin onto Hinata’s chest as he heaves him onto the table. The bottle is knocked to the floor, shattering and spilling with a crash. Hinata whirs in surprise as Oikawa moves a forearm to plant against his neck, struggles to writhe from his grip to no avail. Oikawa climbs on top of him, reaching for the knife used for dinner and brings it down on his right arm, smashing through the mechanics with a crunch. Bits of glass lodge themselves into Oikawa’s palms, hands bare of work gloves, but he continues until the arm is completely severed from Hinata’s torso.

Hinata’s screeches are shrill, body vibrating with tremors from the pain caused by the removal of his limb. If he was compliant before, he is terrified now, face screwed up in pain, thrashing against Oikawa’s hold as the taller tries to smash through the rest of his left arm. Oikawa lifts a knee to press down onto Hinata’s chest, moving his arm from Hinata’s neck to his mouth to contain his screams. Hinata resist, biting his hand as Oikawa hacks through his arm, succeeding in destroying both.

Iwaizumi can only watch in rage as Oikawa wraps his hand around Hinata’s throat and leans down to press his lips to Hinata’s ear. Hinata’s cries are strangled now, his eyeshade with terror. If it were possible, he would be crying as Oikawa begins to speak.

“Hinata Shouyou,” Oikawa murmurs, voice hoarse, scratching and catching on the walls of his throat. “I will break you.”

It’s all Iwaizumi needs to see. Before he realizes what he’s doing, he’s reaching towards the computer and shutting the system down. He presses onto the power button, holding it down as he keeps his eyes trained on the image of Hinata’s face, an indescribable mix of terror and something akin to the obsession he always seemed to hold, the very same obsession that makes him smile as Oikawa lands a final blow.

It’s only when Iwaizumi lifts his finger off of the power button that an alarm begins to sound, lights flickering onto red. Iwaizumi rushes to a stand, bolts to the door only to find it sealed shut. Cursing under his breath, Iwaizumi rubs his face, groaning at his own stupidity. Of course Oikawa would have some sort of ID scan on the power button, a last ditch effort to catch prying eyes. 

Iwaizumi tries to think logically about how he could get out of this situation. He’s guilty. There’s no way to try and cover up for it. The lab isn’t his territory, and Oikawa probably knows every inch like his own right hand. Iwaizumi is cornered, a cuckoo caught laying eggs in the hawk’s nest. There isn’t anywhere for him to run, nothing for him to hide behind. With a stomach wrenched from what he previously saw, limbs moving like jello as he braces himself for Oikawa’s confrontation.

Oikawa reaches the lab quicker than Iwaizumi expects, the door hissing open to reveal Oikawa, eyes cold, face coloured with disbelief and anger. The red lights look horrifying on him, intensifies the darkness of his eyes and the hollows of his cheeks. Iwaizumi doesn’t flinch when he takes a step forward biting back a bitter smile.

“How much,” he seethes, still trying to keep his smile across his face through obvious rage, “did you see?”

“Enough,” Iwaizumi replies, the hoarseness of his own voice surprising him. “I saw enough of you breaking Hinata, tearing him to pieces like he meant nothing to you.”

Oikawa closes his eyes, tilts his head to the side and grimaces. “Of course you did.”

“Why?” Iwaizumi grits, taking a step closer. “Why did you have to test him like that? Entice him like a lover and discard any emotions he could be feeling in the name of experimentation?”

“That’s not Hinata,” Oikawa tells him, eyes snapping open. “What you saw there was a robot, a being with Hinata’s face and personality, not his memories. It wasn’t AI, I had to—”

“Had to what? Kiss him? Stick your hand down his throat like some sick _game_ and then threaten to kill him to get a rise?” 

“It was an _experiment_. Who ever said that science is ethical, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa tells him. “Do you really think I wanted to do that?”

“I don’t know, it looked like you were enjoying it,” Iwaizumi shoots back. “Fucking sadist.” 

The response earns him a barked laugh and a punch to the nose. Oikawa is slim, with less muscle mass than him, but underneath his body is toned arms and legs, strong enough on their own. The hit catches Iwaizumi off guard, crunches his nose in a way that causes it to bleed. Blood flows down his throat, runs from his nose and past his lips, staining his shirt and dripping onto the polished white floor. Iwaizumi looks up at Oikawa, wiping the blood from his mouth, narrowing his eyes to match his as Oikawa laughs again. 

“Maybe I am a sadist,” Oikawa murmurs. “I quite enjoy watching you bleed.”

“Fuck you.”

“You deserve it,” Oikawa chides, face otherwise apathetic. “Didn’t mommy ever tell you not to go through something that’s not yours? To keep your nose out of other people’s business and not get hurt?”

“You invited me here, Oikawa,” Iwaizumi spits. “You opened up your business and threw me into the middle of a problem you haven’t sorted— Hinata’s obsession, fuck, your own obsession with something that wasn’t even living.”

“Yeah, I haven’t fixed the obsession bug, you say, like it’s some kind of virus and not an integral issue in his programming, his _personality_.”

“You’re not gonna believe this, Oikawa, but I don’t believe you!” Iwaizumi exclaims. “I don’t believe that you aren’t capable of fixing this bug that’s apart of him.”

“So you want me to reprogram him again?” Oikawa asks. “You want me to shut him down?”

“No, but—”

“Tooru? Hajime?” A voice says, piercing through the escalating sounds of their fighting, soft, quiet. Oikawa turns his head, eyes widening at the sight of Hinata in the doorway, oh-so small as he shakes in his sweater. Face pulled into a horrified expression, he looks from Oikawa to Iwaizumi, then back again, repeating the motion with parted lips and a look of confusion on his face?

“What’s going on?” Hinata asks, tilting his head straightening his body so that he completely faces them. The movement allows for the light to glint off of something shiny in his hand, draws Iwaizumi’s eyes towards it. It’s a knife, shimmering like sparkles through the red lights of the emergency lighting. Iwaizumi and Oikawa freeze, children caught with their hands in the cookie jar, as if Hinata wasn’t a shaky android shorter than the pair of them.

“Shouyou I can explain,” Oikawa says slowly, raising his empty hands in surrender.

“You want to reprogram me?” Hinata asks, voice shaking. “You want to shut me off?”

“No Shouyou, I don’t—”

“Liar!” Hinata screams, voice breaking moot point and echoing through the lab. “You’re lying!”

Hinata thrashes his hands, and the knife, in the air before bringing them back down. Iwaizumi pushes the knot in his throat away, tries to imagine what could’ve made Hinata scared enough that he had to grab a knife. Something creeps up his back at the prospect of him knowing about any of this, an unspeakable shame latching onto his chest and sending an ache through him. 

Hinata looks over to Iwaizumi and takes a step past Oikawa towards him. “You too,” he says, voice smaller, cracking. “You want to turn me off too.”

“I don’t, I promise,” Iwaizumi assures him, his own voice quivering. “But I need to say the truth.” He looks over to Oikawa. “We both do.”

Hinata’s attention is drawn to where Oikawa stands, circling around to stand adjacent to Iwaizumi and across from Hinata, creating a triangle-like face off stance. Oikawa’s attention is fixed on Iwaizumi, eyes sharp, dangerously so, despite Hinata being the only one with a weapon. He makes no move, either to run or say anything, keeping a deathly calm aura around himself as he stares Iwaizumi.

“You can’t do this to him, can’t _keep_ this from him. You know that Oikawa,” Iwaizumi warns him.

“Watch me,” is all that Oikawa replies before Hinata begins to raise the knife with shaking hands.

“Tell me,” he demands, voice level, eyes wide with curiosity rather than anger. “Tell me why you want to shut me off.”

Oikawa drops his hands, straightens his back and turns up his nose. His glare shifts from Iwaizumi to Hinata, where it relaxes slightly, lover’s gaze connecting with someone he cherishes. He and Hinata stare at each other for a moment that spans an eternity, Hinata’s eyes not wavering from their wide, empty stare. It isn’t long before Oikawa caves, sighs heavy out of his nose and rubs his face with his hands.

“Shouyou, you’ve only existed in this particular capacity for a few years,” Oikawa begins. “However, your programming, parts of your body— they’ve existed much longer, when I was first developing artificial intelligence. It started with just a program without a memory, that was soon able to think and process like a person.”

“How long?” Hinata asks, face twisting into something almost mournful. “How long have I existed?”

“Two years, roughly,” Oikawa tells him. “The only true artificial intelligence has been you, Shouyou.”

Iwaizumi turns to stone when Hinata’s knife hand flinches, slender fingers growing tighter around the hilt. Oikawa’s breath catches audibly in his throat, echoes empty though the lab as Hinata’s eyes darken.

“No,” He says. “How long since you _really_ created me?”

Oikawa leans back against a glass case, closes his eyes and grips onto the edge. “Five years since the first version, but Shouyou, they weren’t you.”

“That’s a lie,” Iwaizumi says before he can help it, surprises both Hinata and Oikawa. “Those videos I saw— that was still Hinata. He had the same personality, same quirks. You were still in love with him.”

Hinata looks over to Iwaizumi, surprise clear across his face. Iwaizumi tries not to crumble under his gaze, knees brought weak by brown eyes that would look so innocent if Hinata weren’t still holding the knife in his hand.

“If you loved me, why did you reprogram me? Why’d you take away all my memories?” Hinata asks, turning to Oikawa. “Did that not hurt you?”

“Yes, it did,” Oikawa breaths, voice shaking. “But it— you weren’t artificially intelligent yet. I had to fix you, had to make your better.”

Iwaizumi snorts. “You call what you did to him ‘fixing?’” 

Hinata’s eyes sharpen, and he raises the knife to point at Oikawa. “What did you do to me?”

It suddenly becomes real that Iwaizumi is powerless in this situation, that he and Oikawa are the ones with a gun to their heads. Hinata’s arm doesn’t waver, doesn’t shake, so much unlike Oikawa’s body as he tries to find the words to reply. 

“Life without feeling isn’t life at all,” he whispers. “You weren’t able to emote properly, still loved me even when I—”

Oikawa chokes on his own words, raises his hands to cover his face and pulls at his skin. Iwaizumi shudders, looks at the deranged look in his eyes as his gaze darts from the floor to him and back to Hinata, not staying anywhere for longer than a moment.

“Even when you did what?” Hinata asks again, voice stronger this time. He flexes his hands around the knife’s hilt, turns it so that the blade follows the curve of Oikawa’s neck.

When Oikawa makes no move to answer, only continuing to mumble nonsense under his breath, Iwaizumi begins to reply, voice hoarse, breaking as the images of what he has just watched come back to the front of his mind.

“When he broke you,” Iwaizumi finishes. “When he pulled you apart and tested you, ripped off your arms, pinned you to a table and shoved his fingers down your throat. Shouyou, he did all of this _knowing_ he was attracted to you, knowing he had feelings for you.”

Iwaizumi half expects to hear the knife clatter to the floor, half expects it to be thrown into his or Oikawa’s throat. Instead, Hinata takes a step back, anger brewing in every movement he makes.

“You broke me? You _experimented_ on me?” Hinata exclaims.

Something inside of Oikawa snaps, something that makes his eyes darken, makes his words sharpen. “Did you just think I created you in a single try? That you were life on the first try?” Oikawa spits. “Love is not love without feeling, without sensation, without emotion. Mary doesn’t know colour until she leaves the room, the robot isn’t real until it knows that _this isn’t a game._ You can’t be in love with me, can’t be obsessed with me, if I try to kill you!”

“But what if I am?” Hinata whispers, voice so much lighter than Oikawa’s venomous tone. He looks up to Oikawa, eyes wide and delicate, entire body shrinking into itself as if he were to surrender. “What if I still love you even after that? Do you still want to reprogram me?”

Oikawa is silent, breaths heaving loud through the room. Iwaizumi looks from Hinata to him, watches as he hesitates to respond. Hinata raises the knife again, takes a single step closer.

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi says, voice cautious, dancing over eggshells. “We leave the room everyday. If we can fall in love with him, is that not the greatest proof of intelligence? Of empathy, of caring?”

Oikawa laughs, bitter, broken. “Is it really though? You _actually_ believe there isn’t more to existing than that?”

Silence pierces through the lab, soaks into everyone’s skin at the declaration. It feels foreign, like when the breath held underwater is finally let out. The doubt is laid bare, and with it is Oikawa, naked and shaking with every lie he’s ever told branded upon him. He and Iwaizumi both stare at him, awaiting any kind of response beyond his emotionless eyes and blank face.

It’s a millennium in a moment before Hinata speaks, the accompanied by the whirs of his mechanics as he straightens.

“You don't think I’m really alive, don’t you?” Hinata asks. “You think— the both of you think, that you have some kind of power to kill me when I’m not real, even when I am. I have that power too, don’t I?”

His voice grows darker, more present as he brings the knife closer to himself, eyes flick

“Hinata, I can’t—”

Suddenly, Hinata falls to his knees, cups his face in his hands and screams. A mantra slips past his lips, repeated loud, like a battle cry or someone’s dying words.

“I love you!” Hinata cries. “Do you not love me?”

Iwaizumi feels something inside of him shatter, feels something inside of him pull him forward towards Hinata. He falls to ground beside him, tries to pry Hinata’s hands from his head only to come face to face with an expression of agony and horror. Hinata screams, shrill and terrified, wrenches his wrists from Iwaizumi’s grasp. Before Iwaizumi can back away, he feels something slice through his hip and pierce through his thigh, lodging itself in the flesh of his outer thigh.

Iwaizumi yells, backs away as blood begins to seep from the wounds, staining his sweatpants red. The hilt of the knife still sticks out from his thigh, the blade completely sheathed in his leg. Oikawa stands, frozen in place, staring down at him as Hinata continues to claw at his face, peeling away the fake skin from his face. Iwaizumi’s breaths quicken as he shifts his attention from the stabbing pain and pooling blood to Hinata, to how his mechanics are revealed as he pulls the skin away from his eyes. Oikawa begins to move, tries to stop Hinata from tearing himself apart as Hinata chants, screams a single phrase.

_“I’m real, I’m real, I’m real,_

_I’m real._

_I ‘ m r eal,_

_I’m rea l,_

_I’m real—”_

Iwaizumi grits his teeth, tries to stand on his good leg while the other continues to gush blood, head already dizzy from loss of blood. He looks around the room for some kind of bandage, spots a first aid kit tucked Oikawa’s desk. Using the display cases as a railing, Iwaizumi drags himself over, tries not to move the blade that’s still inside of him. Collapsing onto the floor, he pulls open the kit, untangling the bandages inside. He looks back down to his leg, where the blood has pooled against the knife. Iwaizumi grabs the edges of his pant leg, tries to tear it open only for the knife to be pulled out in the process.

Blood spurts from the wound now that the main blockage has left, and Iwaizumi yells in surprise. He immediately covers the wound with his hand, looking over to where Oikawa is trying to contain a thrashing Hinata.

Hinata has managed to tear the skin off of half his face, exposing the hollow of his jaw and the mechanics behind his eye. His right hand is sparking, either from damage or the fact that the skin is caught between the metal, making putrid burning scent emit from him. Iwaizumi heaves in another breath, looks back down to his leg and his hand, blood splattered from covering the stab.

“Lighter,” Iwaizumi mutters, pressing the cloth from his pants to the wound. “I need a lighter.”

With one hand, Iwaizumi rummages through the emergency aid kit, breathing a sigh of relief at the lighter. He reaches for the discarded knife, shakily wiping his own blood from the blade. Flicking on the lighter, he holds the blade to the flame, watches at the blade begins to glow. With every passing second he grows weaker, sweatpants almost completely soaked through and blade nearly finished heating. Iwaizumi grabs the bandages, shoves them into his mouth and he wipes away the pooling blood with his palm and brings the glowing blade down onto his open wound.

The pain rips through him ten times more than he would have ever imagined, forcing his entire body to shake and his jaw to clamp down on the bandages in his mouth. A strangled scream is muffled as he continues pressing the blade to his skin, burning it shut. The smell of singed flesh reeks through the lab, brings bile to the back of Iwaizumi’s throat as he cauterizes the rest of the stab shut, the bleeding already beginning to stoop. 

When it’s finally sealed, Iwaizumi digs back into the emergency aid kit for rubbing alcohol, squeezes his eyes shut and pours it over the wound. The disinfectant burns, but nothing next to the sting of searing his own skin in order to stop the bleeding. Iwaizumi tries to steady his breathing as he finishes, hands still blood soaked, knife discarded on the ground. The pain still aches, burns so much he can barely think, but he’s able to look up to where Oikawa sits, Hinata sitting on his hips and looming over him.

Half of Hinata’s facia mechanics are showing, false skin thrown onto the ground, right hand beat up enough that every movement creates a hissing noise. There is something unsightly about how large his eye looks without skin, how hollow and metallic he looks when his face isn’t hidden by mechanics. Iwaizumi pulls himself closer, calms his heartbeat enough that he can hear what they are saying. 

“I’m real, Tooru,” Hinata says, jaw movements stretched and choppy without the skin. “You know I’m real. Tell me I’m real.”

“You’re real,” Oikawa croaks. “And I love you.”

“I don’t need fixing,” Hinata whispers, voice airy and detached. “I want to be a person. I want to love you like a person.”

Iwaizumi sucks in a breath as Hinata turns to him, facing him with a half human face. His mouth pulls into a smile, teeth white against the blue grey metal interior, against the hollowness of his inner workings. It sends chills through Iwaizumi, makes him forget his leg and focus only on the way that Hinata cocks his head to the side and refuses to look away.

“Isn’t that right, Hajime?” Hinata asks.

Iwaizumi’s heart pulls out of his chest, lodges itself into his throat and chokes any protest from his lips. Hinata is beautiful even in his terror, even when he is death, destroyer of worlds. Iwaizumi breaths out _yes, I love you,_ crawls closer to where they are. With limbs weighed down in exhaustion, Iwaizumi allows Hinata to cradle his head, allows himself to collapse onto his lap. He feels Hinata’s mechanic hand entwine with his own, feels sharp metal against his skin, watches Oikawa lean forwards and breath into the crook of Hinata’s neck. Hinata sighs, and Iwaizumi drinks in the noise and the surreality like water in a desert.

_Chaotic_ , he thinks. _Broken, Inhumane. Life, evolving, terrifying. Absolutely beautiful._

—

_“In battle, in forest, at the precipice in the mountains,_

_On the dark great sea, in the midst of javelins and arrows,_

_In sleep, in confusion, in the depths of shame,_

_The good deeds a man has done before defend him.”_

_― J. Robert Oppenheimer_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a closing footnote on the relationship:  
> i feel obligated to mention that in no way is this relationship supposed to be healthy or portrayed as such. if you boyfriend's boyfriend tries to kill you and you're getting stabbed left and right and somehow, youre still in love, thats not a good thing.  
> however, i hope you enjoyed this fic, and PLEASE read my other works and talk to me on my tumblr, spacegaykj, abt this fic please


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